page_title: Mound 72
section_title: Mound 72sub2 and 72sub3
hierarchical_section_title: Mound 72 / Mound 72 Woodhenge / Mound 72sub2 and 72sub3
caption_attribution_description: English: A diagram of solstice and equinox sunset and sunrise positions at the location of Mound 72 and Mound 96 Cahokia Mounds site near Collinsville, Illinois, USA.
context_page_description: Mound 72 is a small ridgetop mound located roughly 850 meters to the south of Monks Mound at Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, Illinois. Early in the site's history, the location began as a circle of 48 large wooden posts known as a "woodhenge". The woodhenge was later dismantled and a series of mortuary houses, platform mounds, mass burials and eventually the ridgetop mound erected in its place. The mound was the location of the "beaded burial", an elaborate burial of an elite personage thought to have been one of the rulers of Cahokia, accompanied by the graves of several hundred retainers and sacrificial victims.
context_section_description: This mound was constructed precisely over the remains of a dismantled charnel house that was thought to have been erected at roughly the same time as the woodhenge post which it is next to. Interred in the mound were 2 recently deceased men and several bundled burials, probably the previous residents of the charnel house who had waited for the elite personages to die in order to be interred with them. Over this first phase a 46 feet (14 m) square platform with two levels and ramp on its eastern side was constructed. The next episode of construction at this location involved a pit being dug into the mound and a cache of various grave goods being deposited in it. A large rectangular pit was dug into the southeast corner of the mound and a mass burial of 24 women was made in it. A new layer of fill was added to the mound and it was extended to the southeast toward Mound 72sub1, for a ramp or extension over the mass burial.
  The next episode of construction involved three stages. A small platform was constructed near the southeastern ramp and four young males with their arms interlocked and missing their hands and skulls were laid out on the platform. Some researchers have concluded that the four men may represent the four cardinal directions.
  In a pit excavated next to these four men were placed the bodies of a large group of young women. This mass grave contained the remains of 53 females ranging in age between 15–30 years of age, arranged in two layers separated by matting. The young women show evidence of having been strangled before being arranged in neat rows in the pit. Analysis of bones and dental traits of these women have led archaeologists to believe these individuals were not from the same social class and ethnic group as other individuals interred in the mound. Non-metric dental traits have suggested that these individuals were not from the Cahokia area and were possibly immigrants new to the area. Analysis of specific carbon isotope and nitrogen isotope ratios left by maize consumption in the bones and cartilage of the women as well as pathologies indicative of poor health and nutritional stress; have led researchers to also conclude they were of a lower social status than elite burials in the mound, consuming more maize and less animal protein than elite individuals.
  This entire construction was then covered and extended even further toward Mound 72sub1 and now dubbed by archaeologists as Mound 72sub3. Next to this mound to the southwest another mass burial was made. This burial is the most grisly found at the site, containing 39 men and women who appear to have been violently killed. Before the mass interment a pit was dug and lined with white sand. The victims were then killed and thrown over the edge of the pit. These people showed signs of meeting a violent end, including several being incompletely decapitated, some with fractured skulls and others with fractured jawbones. The evidence shows that some of these individuals were buried alive: "From the vertical position of some of the fingers, which appear to have been digging in the sand, it is apparent that not all of the victims were dead when they were interred – that some had been trying to pull themselves out of the mass of bodies." The presence of arrowheads in the back of some of these victims, coupled with the beheadings and other evidence of violent death, has led some researchers to conclude that these victims show evidence of warfare or were even the losers of a rebellion against the rulers of Cahokia, possibly even objectors to the earlier sacrifices of the young women. On top of them were the remains of 15 elite individuals laid out upon litters made from cedar poles and cane matting . Radiocarbon dating of the cedar poles used for the litters in the top layer burials in this pit determined that this burial was made approximately 100 years after the woodhenge circle had been constructed, or in approximately 1030 CE.
  Numerous secondary bundle burials of the bones of individuals previously stored in a charnel house were also made into the mound. A
caption: The location after the removal of the timber circle and the final cap of Mound 72
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