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Beth Hundsdorfer
/ Friday, December 3, 2021
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Cahokia Mounds historic site offers augmented reality tours
Technology unveiled as Durbin, Duckworth renew push to have site named a national park
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Pictured is the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in St. Clair County. The site now offers augmented reality tours. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Beth Hundsdorfer)
Friday, December 3, 2021
Technology unveiled as Durbin, Duckworth renew push to have site named a national park
By BETH HUNDSDORFER
Capitol News Illinois
[email protected]
There’s a new way to explore an ancient place in Illinois.
Visitors of Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site can try experiencing it in “augmented reality,” or AR, to see the Grand Plaza as it appeared 1,000 years ago, the Palisade as it once stood and the exterior and interior of the temple that once stood atop Monks Mound.
Cahokia Mounds was the central hub and largest city built by the Mississippian culture of Native Americans. The site has been recognized as a National Historic Landmark, an Illinois State Historic Site and a World Heritage Site by the United Nations.
At its height, Cahokia stretched over six square miles and was home to 10,000 to 20,000 people. Set near the Mississippi River, Cahokia was a trade hub and an agriculture production site. There were 120 mounds in Cahokia, including the largest, Monks Mound. The Mississippians built them between 900 and 1400 AD, according to archeologists.
The augmented reality tour unveiling comes as there is a renewed push to make the site a part of the federal National Park System.
Illinois’ U.S. senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Democrats, sent a letter to President Joe Biden Tuesday asking him to incorporate Cahokia Mounds into the National Park System. In 2016, a study found that Cahokia Mounds met all four of the criteria – significance, suitability, feasibility, and need for National Park Service management.
“We write to encourage you to use your authority under the Antiquities Act to designate the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site as a unit of the National Park System,” Duckworth and Durbin wrote in the letter to Biden. “We support elevating, protecting, and sharing this important archeological and cultural resource that represents the people and landscapes that once made up one of America’s first cities in the Western Hemisphere.”
In April, Durbin introduced the Cahokia Mounds Mississippian Culture National Historical Park Act to change the current designation as …….
Source: https://www.capitolnewsillinois.com/NEWS/cahokia-mounds-historic-site-offers-augmented-reality-tours