Poverty Point Legacy

Indians in Louisiana: The Poverty Point Site
A Local Legacy
Why would anyone build mounds of earth 7 miles long?

In the case of Poverty Point, in northeastern Louisiana, no one knows for sure. In some states, like Ohio, Native American people built mounds as burial places. Archaeologists suspect that the mounds at Poverty Point served as sites for dwellings, but they are not certain. Native American culture in the Poverty Point area began almost 4,000 years ago, and the mounds were built between 1350 and 1800 B.C. 

The mounds are six giant half-circles in the shape of a bull's-eye, almost three-fourths of a mile wide. If you straightened out the six mounds and laid them out end-to-end, they would stretch for 7 miles. Archaeologists believe the 37-acre central plaza formed by the mounds may have been used for religious and other public ceremonies.

Although archaeologists have not found any articles of clothing from these ancient people, they have found jewelry. The great variety of this jewelry, from simple to elaborate, indicates that social status was important in the Poverty Point community. Overall, Poverty Point presents evidence that ancient Americans lived in sophisticated communities. Even so, this does not help to solve the mystery of exactly what these mounds were. Do you have any other ideas?

The archaeological artifacts discovered at Poverty Point provide evidence of a highly developed ancient American culture that inhabited the lower Mississippi delta between 1750 and 1350 BC. This site includes one of the largest native constructions in eastern North America and the earthworks are the oldest of their size in the Western Hemisphere.

In the 1840s, Jacob Walters, an explorer traveling through the area looking for lead ore, first reported the presence of Native American artifacts on the Poverty Point site. However, the true significance and magnitude of the find was not discovered until the 1950s when an old aerial photograph revealed the incredible size of the earthworks at the site.

By examining the artifacts uncovered at the site, archaeologists determined that the site had been abandoned 3,300 years ago and the society of hunter-gatherers was large and sophisticated. Scientists estimate that the construction of the massive earthworks at the site took millions of hours of labor to complete.

Credits & Other Links:

AmericasLibrary.gov

Science-frontiers.com/sf023/sf023p02.htm

http://www.ncptt.nps.gov/Archeology-and-Collections/Research.aspx

http://www.lpb.org/programs/povertypoint/pp_transcript.html

"Poverty Point Earthworks: Site Layout." Drawing by Jon Gibson.