Discuss the mound-building traditions of early North American cultures using the Great Serpent Mound and Monk's Mound as examples. What are the formal characteristics of each mound and what could have been their purpose?

What will be an ideal response?

The ideal Answer should include:
1. The Mississippian culture built the nearly quarter-mile long Great Serpent Mound in present-day Ohio, and carbon-14 dating of wood charcoal samples from the mound suggests that the earthwork was built about 1070 CE.
2. The "head" at the highest point of the twisting snake form has been interpreted as the serpent opening its jaws to swallow a huge egg, but the people who built it may also have been responding to the astronomical display of Hailey's comet in 1066.
3. The most prominent feature of Cahokia was an enormous earth mound called Monk's Mound, which covered 15 acres, was 100 feet high, and was aligned with the sun at the equinox.
4. Smaller rectangular and conical mounds in front of the principal mound surrounded a rectangular plaza, and the various earthworks functioned as tombs and as bases for palaces and temples, and also to make astronomical observations.