Q 01/05

The base of Monks Mound at Cahokia is roughly the same size as the base of which ancient monument?

A) Colosseum in Rome

B) Great Pyramid of Giza

C) Parthenon in Athens

D) Lighthouse of Alexandria

Answer · why

B) Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza and Monks Mound cover similar ground, but the mound is layered soil and clay rather than stone, begun around 900–950 CE.

Q 02/05

By the highest estimates, no US city outgrew Cahokia's peak population until which one did in the 1780s?

A) Baltimore

B) New York City

C) Charleston

D) Philadelphia

Answer · why

D) Philadelphia

Philadelphia passed 40,000 people in the 1780s, the first US city to top the highest estimates for Cahokia. The mound city had been empty for centurie...

Q 03/05

Which conquistador crossed Mississippian chiefdoms from 1539 and died beside the Mississippi River?

A) Hernando de Soto

B) Francisco Coronado

C) Juan Ponce de León

D) Hernán Cortés

Answer · why

A) Hernando de Soto

Hernando de Soto was the first European documented crossing the Mississippi, and his chroniclers left some of the earliest written accounts of Mississ...

Q 04/05

Mississippian farmers grew maize, beans and squash together, a trio widely known by what name?

A) The Holy Trinity

B) The Three Graces

C) The Three Sisters

D) The Triple Alliance

Answer · why

C) The Three Sisters

The Three Sisters fed Cahokia's growth, though one sister arrived late: domesticated beans were not grown there until about 1250.

Q 05/05

Settlers in 1830s Wisconsin named a Mississippian town site for the legendary homeland of which people?

A) The Maya

B) The Inca

C) The Toltecs

D) The Aztecs

Answer · why

D) The Aztecs

The Aztecs told of a northern homeland, so N. F. Hyer, who made the first rough survey of the ruins, named them Aztalan; the walled town was really bu...