While excavating a parcel for soil to build a retention reservoir late last year, City of Chesterfield work crews uncovered a site with thousands of artificacts from a major site of American Indian ruins.

Archaeologists say the site,  — roughly the size of four football fields — was part of what likely was a substantial market center for Indians. The find rivals the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Illinois, the largest known prehistoric city north of Mexico.

One archaeologist used this analogy: If the community at the Cahokia Mounds were like Washington, D.C., and the one in St. Louis the equivalent of the area’s New York City, the spot in Chesterfield would have been like Chicago.

Researchers hope that a dig that began June 24 will help paint a more complete picture of what’s been called Mississippian culture, a people who thrived from about 1050 to 1400 AD and then mysteriously disappeared.

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