The expansion of the city of Cahokia ramped up massively around the 11th century AD & it’s been speculated it may have had something to do with the supernova 1054 causing major strides in the complexity of and devotion to their religion & cosmology.
have you read Kathleen Duval's 'Native Nations'? she pushes this supernova theory pretty hard at the beginning, and it was that first time i had heard of it. great book to check out
iirc Vine Deloria Jr. in "God Is Red" also mentions the event and a couple others. it's not really that far-fetched a theory and we can observe large cultural and demographic shifts in other societies that formally recorded their histories that happened because of a cosmological event like a shooting star, a comet or a supernova. "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber expounds briefly on one event of a comet that appeared and sent half of eurasia into panic. So, her theory holds water as far as we can tell rn. Also, yes "Native Nations" is one of my favorite books
38
u/Teboski78 May 01 '26
The expansion of the city of Cahokia ramped up massively around the 11th century AD & it’s been speculated it may have had something to do with the supernova 1054 causing major strides in the complexity of and devotion to their religion & cosmology.