Rediscovering a path to the Milky Way through archaeology

MAY 7, 2020


by Diana Yates, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign



“All these native stories talk about what happens when you die: Your soul goes to the edge of the world, jumps into the Milky Way and climbs into the sky,” says Illinois State Archaeological Survey director Timothy Pauketat. Credit: U.S. Forest Service


We're standing on a roadside at the edge of a muddy expanse. While I'm wearing rubber boots, Tim Pauketat is going to get his feet wet. He left his waterproof boots in Indiana, but this won't stop him from tromping out into the soggy, overgrown remains of the ancient city of Cahokia.

We're here because it's wet. Pauketat, the director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey and an archaeologist who has studied Cahokia for close to 25 years, wants to see it flooded. Watching how the water flows here will help unlock some of the secrets of this place, he says.

We're here with ISAS research scientists Michael Aiuvalasit and Michael Farkas. Aiuvalasit, too, has forgotten his waterproof boots.

Farkas tosses a stack of lidar maps on the open tailgate of their truck and Pauketat lays out the day's mission. The lidar – a light detection and ranging sensor – highlights subtle changes in elevation that are otherwise difficult to see.

More:
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-rediscovering-path-milky-archaeology.html