Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi Book

I was hoping to read more about Cahokia itself as it was, but it felt like more than half of the book was actually dedicated to the story of the archaeologists who uncovered various parts of it. It's nice to know about, I guess, but as a non-archaeologist I had a hard time visualizing the descriptions of the digs.

The remainder, the interesting tidbits, were (fittingly, I guess) buried between long stretches of the archaeologist narrative. The reader can catch glimpses of Cahokian ritual, myth, and city/rural life, but the whole is not synthesized into an impressive story.

Ultimately, after reading the book I know more about Cahokia than I did before (which was basically nothing), but I can't help feeling that there is a really *exciting* story to be told here. Forget story, even - there are some really interesting facts to be presented in an interesting way. Despite the intriguing or tongue-and-cheek chapter titles ("Wrestling with the Gods", "High Plains Drifting"), this book didn't deliver in that area.