The "Grossmann" Axe Cache
The Grossman Cache, discovered in the summer of 2001 near O'Fallon, Illinois, consists of
70 finely worked celts (ungrooved axes), including the largest one ever found in this region. At
at 18-inches long it weighs 25 pounds. The cache was found complete, in its storage pit,
just as the Native Americans left it approximately 1,000 years ago. A tool kit of this size
and weight implies communal construction projects, possibly of monumental proportions. It is
likely that the stone of which this tool kit is made originated in Southern Missouri and it
is being speculated that the tools themselves may have actually been fashioned at Cahokia.
Archaeologists are excited by the implications that this discovery may have about the nature
of the relationship between Cahokia and sites along its upland 'frontier'.