CAHOKIA: MIRROR OF THE COSMOS traces the history of this UNESCO World Heritage site over as long a period of time as possible-from the Big Bang to the present. The author, Sally A. Kitt Chappell, seeks answers to fundamental questions. How did this swampy land become so amenable to human life? Who were the ingenuous people who lived here before the Europeans came? Why did the whole civilization disappear so rapidly? And finally, what can we learn about ourselves as we look into the changing meaning of Cahokia through the ages? To explore these questions, Chappell probes a wide range of sources, including the work of astronomers, geographers, geologists, anthropologists, and archeologists. Archival photographs and newspaper accounts, as well as interviews with those who work at the site and Native Americans, bring the story up to the present. Tying together these many threads, Chappell weaves a rich tale of how different people conferred their values on the same piece of land and how the transformed landscape, in turn, inspired different values in them-cultural, spiritual, agricultural, economic, and humanistic.