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Poverty Point Cover

*Poverty Point
*/A Terminal Archaic Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley/

Second Edition May 1996

Jon L. Gibson
University of Southwestern Louisiana

*Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism
*/Louisiana Archaeological Survey and Antiquities Commission/

Acknowledgments

In the first edition of this study, I acknowledged the help and
stimulation I received from Dr. Clarence Webb and Mitchell Hillman.
I enjoyed three decades of collaboration on Poverty Point and
related matters with Dr. Webb and nearly that long with Mitchell.
They are both gone now but my debt to them remains. Much of my view
of Poverty Point grew out of our mutual searches and musings.

Poverty Point Cooking Ball *Poverty Point Ceramic Cooking Ball

*Dr. Webb and I planned to co-author the original study, but when
other commitments caused him to withdraw, he charged me with full
responsibility. Having his unwavering confidence and support was a
major source of satisfaction then and still is. Dr. Webb critiqued
and copy edited the final draft of the first edition, and although
he would not let me include him as co-author strictly on that basis,
I think the published version says what we would have said if we had
written the piece together, not exactly in the same words but with
the same spirit.

The revised edition of /Poverty Point/ has not benefitted from his
direct scrutiny, but it was written as if he had reviewed it. This
is still very much of a collaborative study.

/Yakoke sa kana./ 

Editors Note

Louisiana's cultural heritage dates back to approximately 10,000
B.C. when people first entered this region. Since that time, many
other Native American groups have settled here. All of these groups,
as well as the more recent Europeans, Africans, and Asians, have
left evidence of their presence in the archaeological record. The
Anthropological Study Series published by the Department of Culture,
Recreation and Tourism, Office of Cultural Development provides a
readable account of various activities of these cultural groups.

Jon L. Gibson, an archaeologist with a long-standing interest in the
Poverty Point culture, is the author of /Poverty Point: A Terminal
Archaic Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley,/ the seventh in the
series. In this volume, Jon Gibson describes the Poverty Point
culture: one of the most spectacular episodes in Louisiana's past.
Few people realize that the Poverty Point site, at 1500 B.C., was
the commercial and governmental center of its day. In its time, the
Poverty Point site had the largest, most elaborate earthworks
anywhere in the western hemisphere. No other Louisiana earthen
constructions approached the size of the Poverty Point site until
the nineteenth century. Poverty Point is recognized by the United
Nations as one of three World Heritage sites in the continental
United States.

This volume tries to reconstruct the life of these bygone people
from the archaeological remains. It discusses where these people
lived, what they ate, and how they made their tools. It also
attempts to reconstruct their social organization and government.
New understanding of the Poverty Point culture is based in part on
recently received radiocarbon dates, which are included in this
volume in calibrated, calendar dates.

Thousands of years after Native Americans built the earthworks, a
historic plantation encompassed much of the site. The
nineteenth-century owners gave their property the name Poverty
Point. Archaeologists continued using that name when they recorded
the prehistoric site.

Today, the Poverty Point site is owned by the state of Louisiana and
is managed by the Office of State Parks as the Poverty Point State
Historic Site. It is open to the public seven days a week, 9:00 a.m.
to 5:00 p.m. A visitor center, museum, and an archaeological
research laboratory are located on the grounds. Readers are
encouraged to visit the site
<http://www.crt.state.la.us/crt/parks/poverty/pvertypt.htm> to learn
more about Poverty Point.

We, in the Division of Archaeology, are confident that your
understanding of the significance of Poverty Point will be enhanced
by this second edition of /Poverty Point: A Terminal Archaic Culture
of the Lower Mississippi Valley.

/*Thomas Hales Eubanks
*/State Archaeologist/ 

Introduction

Poverty Point is a major archaeological mystery. The mystery centers
on the ruins of a large prehistoric Indian settlement, the Poverty
Point site. There on a bluff top overlooking Mississippi River
swamplands in northeastern Louisiana is a group of artificial mounds
and embankments. It is not the earthworks themselves that are so
mysterious. Eastern North America is, after all, the land of the
"Mound Builders." These people once were thought to be a highly
advanced, extinct race, but now are known to be ancestors of Native
Americans, such as the Creek, Choctaw, Shawnee, and Natchez. The
real mystery lies in the size and age of the earthworks. They are
among the largest native constructions known in eastern North
America, yet they are old, older than any other earthworks of this
size in the western hemisphere.

Radiocarbon dates indicate that the earthworks were built between
fourteen and eighteen centuries before the birth of Christ. This was
an eventful time throughout the world. In Egypt, Amenhotep IV, his
queen, Nefertiti, and the boy pharaoh, Tutankhamen, were ruling, and
the Canaanites were being enslaved. In Turkey and Syria, the Hittite
Empire was expanding. In Iraq, Babylon and its lawgiver king,
Hammurabi, were in power. In Crete and surrounding Mediterranean
islands, Minoan civilization was reaching its peak. In Britain,
Stonehenge was being completed, and in Pakistan, the great planned
city of Moenjo-Daro was succumbing to flooding. In China, the Shang
dynasty was flourishing, and in Mexico, the Olmec chiefdom was
ascending.

At that time, almost all Indians living north of Mexico were small
bands of migratory hunter-gatherers. Such societies do not
ordinarily build huge earthworks like those at Poverty Point.
Large-scale construction is possible when large numbers of people
settle down in villages and after political forces grow strong
enough to shift some labor from the hunt and harvest to the civic
and ceremonial. In most of the world, these conditions--large,
permanent villages and political power--are found among agricultural
societies.

How did the conditions necessary for large-scale construction appear
at Poverty Point while everyone else in America north of Mexico was
still following a simpler way of life? Was Poverty Point one of the
first communities to rise above its contemporaries to start the long
journey toward becoming a truly complex society? If Poverty Point
did represent the awakening of complex society in the United States,
how and why did it develop?

Was it created by immigrants bearing maize and a new religion from
somewhere in Mexico? Was it developed by local peoples who had been
stimulated by ideas from Mexico? Did it arise by itself without any
foreign influences? Did it come about without agriculture? Could
hunting and gathering have sustained the society and its impressive
works?

These sorts of questions perplexed archaeologists. Limited data and
disagreement over these issues made Poverty Point a real
archaeological puzzle. New research has begun to clarify some of
these things. We no longer regard Poverty Point as a geographic or
developmental irregularity, but it remains one of the most unusual
archaeological cultures in eastern North America. 

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