The United States covers an immense area with varied geographical landscapes and a historical richness that is often underrated, given the overall image of the country as a relatively “young” and “modern” nation, settled by immigrants quite recently. However, the large number of Native American settlements that existed before the European settlers’ arrival, as well as archaeological evidence of prehistoric cultural sites, provide a much deeper backdrop to American history. These ancient cultural manifestations have been recognized by UNESCO as treasures to be preserved for all of humanity. 

There are 26 U.S. properties inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List, 13 of which are categorized as cultural, 12 as natural, and 1 as mixed. Out of the 13 cultural sites, nearly half (6) relate to prehistoric and indigenous cultural expressions.  The following pages provide a glimpse into each of these unique and fascinating ancient sites.

Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point

This site, located on the Macon Ridge in the Lower Mississippi Valley (North Louisiana), dates back to the Late Archaic Period (3,700-3,100 years ago) and offers a glimpse into the life of a fishing hunter-gatherer community who shaped the landscape into a large residential, ceremonial and trading settlement, taking advantage of the Mississippi River below to bring or trade non-local materials. It is considered a unique testament to the ingenuity of our most ancient ancestors, who built this integrated complex of earthen mounds – consisting of six semi-circular earthen ridges around a large flat plaza, one of which is among the largest constructed human mounds in North America – entirely by hand, without the aid of domesticated animals, modern tools, or wheeled carts. Archaeological analysis shows that the mounds were built over a period of 600 years, and that there were many wooden residences where hundreds of people may have lived, forming an unusually large community in an era when most humans lived in small bands. 

Artifacts found at the site indicate that this was a large trading center: more than 70 tons of rocks and minerals from areas up to 800 miles away have been found, used to make weapons, tools and ceremonial items. The remains of massive holes for wooden posts set in circles indicate that the site may have had important ceremonial purposes or been used for astronomical observation. It is unclear why this settlement was abandoned around 1100 BC; a smaller mound was added around 700 AD, and the area was not settled thereafter until Euro-American settlers arrived in the 1800s (the site was named after a nearby plantation). 

Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks

The Hopewell people were foragers and farmers who lived in dispersed, egalitarian groups along the central tributaries of the Ohio River (now Southern and Central Ohio), between 2,000 and 1,500 years ago. Archaeologists believe that they gathered together periodically in large numbers at the Ceremonial Earthworks sites, which consist of eight gigantic earthen enclosure complexes that are shaped into precise geometric figures and align with the cycles of the Sun and the Moon. These earthen squares, circles and octagons are considered masterpieces of landscape architecture, given that they involve complex building techniques and a deep knowledge of astronomical cycles that would have required centuries of observation. It is also particularly remarkable that these sites contain finely crafted ritual objects made from raw materials such as seashells, obsidian and mica, which could only have been brought from areas as far away as the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains and Appalachia. This indicates that the Hopewell people made immense efforts to bring these rare materials from distant areas, for apparently ceremonial purposes. These Earthworks were thus the center of a large network of community interaction or trade, and a unique manifestation of ancient technical and symbolic thought. 

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site

Considered the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico, this site consists of a set of 51 mounds which served as foundations for public buildings and funerary rites, together with areas of land used for residential, public, and specialized activities and a reconstructed palisade. Dating back to between 800 and 1350 AD and located in Collinsville, Illinois, it represents a key center of social, religious and economic life for the agricultural Mississippian culture, which once covered more than 1,600 hectares throughout the Mississippi Valley. It is considered that, at its zenith (around 1100 AD), this central settlement may have had around 20,000 residents - a larger population than London at that time. The site is especially notable because it includes Monks Mound, a 6-hectare wide and 30-meter-high prehistoric earthen structure, considered the largest in the New World; it also contains a circle of wooden posts that indicate the existence of an astronomical observatory (termed “Woodhenge”).  

Mesa Verde National Park

This 2,600-meter-high plateau in southwest Colorado is home to a large and well-preserved prehistoric settlement which provides a unique view into the culture of the ancestral Puebloan people, who lived in these thriving communities for almost 900 years, from around 450 to 1300 AD. A wide variety of Pueblo archaeological sites are distributed across the mesas (parts of the plateau), ranging from masonry-walled villages and pit-house settlements to farming terraces, reservoirs, ceremonial features and rock art. Perhaps the most well-known sites are the 600 or so cliff dwellings, made of sandstone and mud mortar, which range from small storage spaces to large abodes with up to 200 rooms.  According to UNESCO, Mesa Verde “represents a significant and living link between the Puebloan Peoples’ past and their present way of life”; the National Park Service also emphasizes that this sacred landscape represents the ancestral heritage of 27 current Pueblos and Tribes in the region. It adds that Mesa Verde is home to over a thousand natural species, including some that are unique to this area. 

Chaco Canyon: Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Aztec Ruins National Monument

Chaco Canyon in New Mexico was a major center of ancestral Pueblo culture for the Four Corners Area of the pre-historic Southwest. This World Heritage site includes Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Aztec Ruins National Monument, and five smaller protected Chaco sites. The complexity and size of all of these sites indicate the dominance of the Chacoan society within the regional ancestral Pueblo culture, in the period between 850 and 1250 AD. The archaeological evidence shows that this network of Chacoan settlements were teeming with trade and political activities, had monumental public and ceremonial buildings – including a distinctive urban ceremonial center that is architecturally unique – and “great houses” with many storeys. These large-scale structures were highly organized, and an elaborate, well-engineered network of roads linked the sites together. The fact that all of this could be achieved despite a very harsh natural environment indicates that the Chaco people were economically powerful within the region; they also appear to have had complex religious ceremonies and beliefs, given the size and unique features of their ceremonial structures. The ancestral sites in Chaco Canyon are still considered deeply sacred to many Indigenous peoples from the Southwest. 

Taos Pueblo

The Taos Pueblo settlement shows similarities with those of the ancestral Pueblo people in Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon; however, the Taos Pueblo culture does not have the same Mesoamerican precedents and is considered unique to the Taos Valley, a region around the tributaries of the Rio Grande, within the Rocky Mountains’ Sangre de Cristo range in northern New Mexico. This site is one of a series of settlements established between the late 1200s and early 1300s AD; it consists of a walled village with two 5-storey adobe dwellings, known as the North and South Houses, built in terraced tiers, as well as ruins of previous houses, seven kivas (underground chambers used for ceremonial purposes) a track for traditional foot-races, the ruins of a Spanish church from the 1600s and the currently-functioning San Geronimo Catholic Church. This site is unique because it illustrates the development of a cultural way of life that has survived until the present day – the adobe dwellings have been continuously inhabited for over 1,000 years and are still used today by an active Pueblo community, who claim to have resided in this region for thousands of years.  The Taos Pueblo Sacred Blue Lake, in the Sangre de Cristo Range, is the source of a stream that flows through the area; it thus sustains the region’s agriculture and is an integral part of Taos Pueblo culture.

Sources

Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point, UNESCO World Heritage List, at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1435

Poverty Point World Heritage Site, at: https://www.povertypoint.us/history-artifacts-poverty-point

Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, at: https://hopewellearthworks.org/

Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, UNESCO World Heritage List, at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1689

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, UNESCO World Heritage List, at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/198

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, at: https://cahokiamounds.org/

Mesa Verde National Park, UNSECO World Heritage List, at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/27

Mesa Verde National Park, National Park Service, at: https://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm

Chaco Culture, UNESCO World Heritage List, at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/353

Aztec Ruins National Monument, National Park Service, at: https://www.nps.gov/azru/index.htm

Taos Pueblo, UNESCO World Heritage List, at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/492

Taos Pueblo: Over 1,000 Years of Tradition, at: https://taospueblo.com/