 Mound 72, reconstructed after major excavations | |
  Location within Illinois today | |
| Location | Collinsville, Illinois, Madison County, Illinois, United States |
|---|---|
| Region | Madison County, Illinois |
| Coordinates | 38°39′2.02″N 90°3′48.24″W / 38.6505611°N 90.0634000°W |
| History | |
| Cultures | Middle Mississippian culture |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1967–1972, 1992–1997, |
| Archaeologists | Melvin L. Fowler |
| Architecture | |
| Architectural styles | timber circle, platform mound, ridgetop mound, mass burial |
| Architectural details | Number of monuments: 1 Number of temples: 2 |
Mound 72 is a small ridgetop mound located roughly 850 meters (2,790 ft) 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.