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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #62948 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62948)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poverty Point, by Jon L. Gibson
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: Poverty Point
-       Anthropological Study No. 7
-
-Author: Jon L. Gibson
-
-Release Date: August 16, 2020 [EBook #62948]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POVERTY POINT ***
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-Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
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-
-
-             Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism
-       Louisiana Archaeological Survey and Antiquities Commission
-                      Anthropological Study No. 7
-
-
-
-
-                             POVERTY POINT
-
-
-    [Illustration: Bird design from Poverty Point stone art.]
-
-                         Baton Rouge, Louisiana
-
-                           STATE OF LOUISIANA
-
-                            Edwin W. Edwards
-                               _Governor_
-
-             DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE, RECREATION AND TOURISM
-
-                             Noelle LeBlanc
-                              _Secretary_
-
-            ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY AND ANTIQUITIES COMMISSION
-
-                          _Ex-Officio Members_
-
-  Dr. Kathleen Byrd                             _State Archaeologist_
-  Mr. Robert B.             _Assistant Secretary_, Office of Cultural
-  DeBlieux                                                Development
-  Mr. B. Jim Porter      _Secretary_, Department of Natural Resources
-  Mrs. Dorothy M.                _Secretary_, Department of Urban and
-  Taylor                                            Community Affairs
-
-                          _Appointed Members_
-
-                        Mrs. Mary L. Christovich
-                           Mr. Brian J. Duhe
-                          Mr. Marc Dupuy, Jr.
-                        Dr. Lorraine Heartfield
-                         Dr. J. Richard Shenkel
-                          Mrs. Lanier Simmons
-                          Dr. Clarence H. Webb
-
-                      First Printing    April 1983
-          Second Printing, with corrections    September 1985
-
-
-
-
-The second printing of this document was funded by the Louisiana
-Research Foundation and the U. S. Department of the Interior, National
-Park Service Historic Preservation Fund. This document was published by
-Bourque Printing, Inc., P. O. Box 45070, Baton Rouge, LA 70895-4070.
-
-
-
-
-                             POVERTY POINT:
-               A Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley
-
-
-                             Jon L. Gibson
-
-
-                           To Carl Alexander,
-                             with gratitude
-
-
-
-
-                             Editor’s Note
-
-
-Louisiana’s cultural heritage dates back to approximately 10,000 B.C.
-when man first entered this region. Since that time, many other Indian
-groups have settled here. All of these groups, as well as the more
-recent whites and blacks, have left evidence of their presence in the
-archaeological record. The Anthropological Study series published by the
-Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, Office of Cultural
-Development provides a readable account of various activities of these
-cultural groups.
-
-Jon L. Gibson, a professional archaeologist with a long-standing
-interest in the Poverty Point culture, is the author of “Poverty Point:
-A 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 1000 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.
-
-This volume tries to reconstruct from the archaeological remains the
-life of these bygone people. 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.
-
-We trust the reader will enjoy this introduction to the fascinating
-Poverty Point people.
-
-                                                           Kathleen Byrd
-                                                   _State Archaeologist_
-
-
-
-
-                            ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
-
-
-Much of what I know, think, and say about Poverty Point is due to Dr.
-Clarence Webb. Our close association and collaboration on Poverty Point
-matters go back to 1969 when we cooperated in a study of the large Carl
-Alexander collection. The mutual respect and friendship spawned by that
-association have grown over the years, even though our views on the
-Poverty Point site and culture have not always coincided. We were to
-have coauthored this booklet, but circumstances would not permit. I have
-forged ahead, under his prodding, and hope the results will be to his
-liking. His thoughtful critique of an earlier version of this report has
-improved the current one immeasurably.
-
-Mitchell Hillman, Curator of the Poverty Point Commemorative Area, has
-been a constant source of information and new ideas. Walks over the
-magnificent Poverty Point site with Hillman are always new experiences.
-I have never come away from these get-togethers without being
-rededicated to delving into the many mysteries that the awe-inspiring
-site has to offer.
-
-The excellent photographs in this book are the work of Brian Cockerham,
-Ranger at the Poverty Point Commemorative Area, and the drawings are my
-own.
-
-
-
-
-                              INTRODUCTION
-
-
-Until a few years ago, Poverty Point culture was a major archaeological
-mystery. The mystery centered around the ruins of a large, prehistoric
-Indian settlement, the Poverty Point site in northeastern Louisiana.
-Poised on a bluff overlooking Mississippi River swamplands was a group
-of massive earthworks. It was not the earthworks themselves that were so
-mysterious, although they were unusual. Eastern North America was after
-all the acknowledged home of the “Mound Builders,” originally believed
-to be an extinct, superior race but now known to have been ancestors of
-various Indian tribes. No, the mystery lay in the age and the size of
-the earthworks.
-
-Radiocarbon dates indicated that they were built at least a thousand
-years before the birth of Christ. This was a time when Phoenicians were
-plying warm Mediterranean waters spreading trade goods and the Ugaritian
-alphabet. This was a time when the Hittites were warlords of the Middle
-East. It was before the founding of Rome; even the ascendancy of the
-Etruscans was still centuries away. Rameses II sat on the throne of
-Egypt. Moses had just led the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage in
-quest of the Promised Land. David and Solomon were kings of Israel.
-
-In America where written history is lacking, Native Americans of 2000 to
-1000 B.C. were thought to have been wandering hunters and gatherers
-living in small bands or at best simple tribes. Such unsophisticated
-groups were not considered capable of raising earthworks like those at
-the Poverty Point site. Archaeologists believed that such massive
-construction projects were possible only when large numbers of people
-started living together in permanent villages and when political control
-over villagers reached the point where labor could be organized and
-directed toward building and maintaining community projects, such as
-civic or religious centers or monuments. These conditions—large,
-permanent villages and effective political power—were normally found
-only among peoples whose economy was based on agriculture. In America
-that usually meant maize (corn).
-
-Were we to believe that Poverty Point might have successfully integrated
-these factors—large populations, political strength, and maize
-agriculture—while everyone else in America north of Mexico was still
-adhering to a much simpler existence? If so, it meant that Poverty Point
-was one of the first communities, if not _the_ first, to rise above its
-contemporaries and start the long journey to becoming a truly advanced
-society.
-
-If Poverty Point did represent the awakening of complex society in the
-United States, how and why did it develop? Was its emergence caused by
-immigrants, bearing corn and a new religion, from somewhere in Mexico
-(Ford 1969:181)? Did it develop locally but under Mexican stimulation
-(Webb 1977:60-61)? Did it come about by itself without foreign
-influences (Gibson 1974)?
-
-These were some of the major questions that surrounded Poverty Point.
-The lack of agreement on these issues created an aura of mystery and
-promoted the idea that Poverty Point was an enigma, or puzzle. When
-Poverty Point was not simply being ignored in discussions of
-Southeastern prehistory during the 1950s-1960s, it was usually portrayed
-as an unusual cultural complex that burst upon the Lower Mississippi
-Valley landscape, flourished for a while, and then disappeared leaving
-no trace among succeeding cultures.
-
-Time has begun to change these perceptions. Poverty Point is no longer
-regarded as a geographic or developmental irregularity. New research
-during the last three decades has shown that the Poverty Point way of
-life was not confined to the big town at the main site, but extended
-over a large region and encompassed many peoples. Even with increased
-knowledge, Poverty Point still remains exceptional; yet it is no longer
-regarded as being out of step with Native American cultural evolution or
-as a historical flower that blossomed before its time. There are still
-many unresolved questions about Poverty Point culture. In the following
-pages, we will explore these questions and our current state of
-knowledge in order to present a reasonable picture of life in the Lower
-Mississippi Valley during Poverty Point times.
-
-
-
-
-                  POVERTY POINT CULTURE: A DEFINITION
-
-
-Poverty Point culture was a widespread pattern of life followed by
-certain Indian peoples in the Lower Mississippi Valley between 2000 and
-700 B.C. This general lifeway stretched roughly from a northerly point
-near the junction of the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers, (above the
-present-day town of Greenville, Mississippi) down the Mississippi Valley
-to the Gulf Coast (Figure 1). It covered parts of Louisiana, Arkansas,
-and Mississippi, and its influences reached as far as Florida along the
-eastern coast and as far up valley as Tennessee and Missouri.
-
-One should not get the idea that Poverty Point peoples from one end of
-this large region to the other were exactly alike. They did not comprise
-a single body of kinfolks or a nation. They almost certainly spoke
-different languages. It is likely that Poverty Point peoples were
-divided into a number of socially, politically, and ethnically separate
-groups.
-
-What these people did have in common was participation, to varying
-degrees, in a far-reaching system of trade and manufacture or use of
-certain artifacts. Recognition of these artifacts is how archaeologists
-differentiate between Poverty Point sites and sites of different
-cultures. Some of these characteristic artifacts include clay cooking
-balls, clay figurines, small stone tools called microflints, plummets,
-and finely-crafted stone beads and pendants (Figure 2). Several things
-distinguish Poverty Point artifacts. One is the decided preference for
-materials imported from other regions. The other is the emphasis on
-ground and polished stone artifacts, especially ornaments and other
-status insignias.
-
-Radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates show that Poverty Point culture
-developed over a long period of time. By 3000 B.C., many of the typical
-artifacts were already in use. A few items had appeared even earlier.
-During the next thousand years, new artifacts and new styles were added,
-and by 2000-1800 B.C., an early stage of Poverty Point culture had
-evolved in some areas. However, the period between 1500 and 700 B.C. was
-the most climactic, because that was the span dominated by the giant
-Poverty Point site.
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 1. How the Lower Mississippi Valley Might Have
-    Looked in 1000 B.C. Shows Courses of Major Rivers and Locations of
-    Poverty Point Territories.]
-
-  AREAS OF SETTLEMENT
-  SITES
-    POVERTY POINT
-    Jaketown
-    Cowpen Slough
-    Claiborne
-  Ouachita River
-  Arkansas River
-  Joe’s Bayou
-  West Fork Mississippi River
-  East Fork Mississippi River
-  Vermilion River
-  Teche-Red River
-  Louisiana boundaries and modern Mississippi River shown as dotted
-          lines
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 2. Artifacts Characteristic of Poverty Point
-    Culture. a-c, Plummets; d-f, Miniature Stone Carvings; g-j, Poverty
-    Point Objects; k-l, Human Figurines; m-o, Projectile Points.
-    Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]
-
-
-
-
-                               SETTLEMENT
-
-
-A map showing the Lower Mississippi Valley in 1000 B.C., during the
-zenith of Poverty Point culture, reveals some very interesting things.
-Population was concentrated in certain areas and these areas were
-separated from each other, sometimes by scores of miles (Figure 1).
-While this pattern of geographic isolation may be due in part to river
-erosion and spotty archaeological investigation, it almost surely
-reflects preferences for certain kinds of land. There were at least 10
-population clusters in the area. The largest concentration was in the
-Yazoo Basin of western Mississippi. Another surrounded the Poverty Point
-site itself in the Upper Tensas Basin-Macon Ridge region of northeastern
-Louisiana.
-
-Lying between these various population clusters were stretches of
-uninhabited or lightly occupied land. In possibly one or two cases,
-intervening areas may have supported populations almost as concentrated
-as Poverty Point territories but, for various reasons, these peoples did
-not participate regularly or intensively in Poverty Point culture.
-
-Our map of 1000 B.C. shows another interesting feature. The scattered
-Poverty Point population clusters were all linked by waterways. Every
-one was tied to the Mississippi River. Even though the Mississippi River
-did not run through every concentration, its major tributaries and
-distributaries did. These interconnected streams must have been the
-highways that carried people, trade goods, and ideas.
-
-Most of the population lived in permanent villages along these streams.
-There were small, medium, and large villages, ranging in size from less
-than an acre to over 100 acres. The smallest settlements probably housed
-only a few families, while residents at some of the larger ones must
-have numbered in the hundreds, possibly even more. One site among them
-was a veritable metropolis for the day; the population at the Poverty
-Point site itself has been estimated to number several thousands (Ford
-and Webb 1956; Gibson 1973). In addition to these stable villages, there
-were temporary campsites, where villagers evidently took advantage of
-seasonally available foods and other resources.
-
-Larger villages were often distinguished from smaller ones by more than
-population numbers. One or more villages in nearly every Poverty Point
-territory were set apart by public construction works, usually mounds
-and sometimes embankments. Mounds were made of dirt and were usually
-dome-shaped affairs constructed in several stages. Two unique mounds at
-the Poverty Point site have been identified as bird effigies (Ford
-1955). Typically one mound stood at these villages, but two to eight
-mounds were present in some instances (Webb 1977:11-13).
-
-As a general rule, the number and size of these works varied directly
-with village size and population. Even though several of these mounds
-have been excavated, their purpose is still unclear. They superficially
-resemble mounds used as tombs by later cultures, but no burials have
-turned up in the Poverty Point structures. Beneath a mound of this type
-at the Poverty Point site was a bed of ashes and a burned human bone,
-suggesting that, at least in this example, it covered a cremation (Ford
-and Webb 1956:38). Embankments, or artificial ridges, were occasionally
-built at these bigger villages. In many cases, embankments seem to have
-been raised by a combination of construction and incidental accumulation
-of living refuse. Most of the giant ridges at Poverty Point seem to have
-grown this way (Ford and Webb 1956; Kuttruff 1975). However, not all of
-these ridges positively served as foundations for houses. Some served to
-connect mounds, others perhaps to mark alignments of some kind.
-
-There was evidently no standard architectural arrangement involving
-mounds and ridges, but semicircular patterns occurred most often. The
-largest example is at the giant Poverty Point town (Figure 3). Linear
-plans were also used, and some sites show no recognizable designs. These
-various arrangements have been said to reflect everything from
-astronomical observatories to possible “fortresses.”
-
-Of all the similarities and differences among territorial settlement
-patterns, several things stand out. Villages in each province ranged
-from small to large and from simple to complex, and every province had
-one village that stood apart from all the rest. This main village was
-probably the regional “capital.” Such an arrangement also seems
-applicable to the provinces themselves. They, like the villages within
-their bounds, can be ranked in importance according to the intensity of
-interaction with the major province. Lest there be any doubt, that
-supreme province lay along the Macon Ridge-Upper Tensas lowlands in
-extreme northeastern Louisiana. Its “capital” was the great town of
-Poverty Point. Because of its dominating influence, this magnificent
-town will be described in detail.
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 3. Reconstruction of the Central District of
-    the Poverty Point Site about 1000 B.C.]
-
-It was first reported by Samuel Lockett in 1873 and was visited many
-times afterwards. However, it was during excavations, sponsored by the
-American Museum of Natural History in the early 1950s, that its true
-nature came to be realized (Ford and Webb 1956). From aerial photographs
-came the startling realization—Poverty Point was a giant earthwork. It
-was so large that the bumps and ridges, apparent from a ground-level
-view, were once thought to be natural. The symmetrical geometry revealed
-on the photographs, however, led everyone to believe that it had been
-built from a “blueprint” in a single, all-out construction effort. Its
-great size, coupled with the millions of artifacts scattered over and in
-the artificial constructions, gave the impression that it was home for
-literally thousands and a magnet for multitudes of visitors. Even though
-new information has begun to change some of these ideas, it has not
-diminished the massiveness of the engineering feat or appreciation for
-the collective spirit of those long-ago builders whose vision and toil
-is represented there.
-
-As one can see from the “city map” (Figure 3), the town was divided into
-several areas. The main area in the middle of town was dominated by a
-semicircular or partially octagonal enclosure. The enclosure was
-produced by six artificial, earthen embankments which formed concentric
-arcs. Extra ridges were outlined in the western sector, and the outer
-ridge terminated before reaching the south sector. The ridges were
-between 50 and 150 feet apart and about the same in width. They were 4
-to 6 feet tall. Between them were low areas, or swales, apparently where
-much of the construction dirt had been removed. From one end of the
-outer arc to the other was 3950 feet, or nearly three-quarters of a
-mile. Opposite ends of the interior or smallest embankment were 1950
-feet apart. All of the ridges terminated at the edge of a bluff, which
-dropped steeply some 20 feet below to a stream which paralleled the
-entire eastern side of the earthwork.
-
-Formerly, archaeologists suspected that the ridges formed a complete
-circle or octagon and that the Arkansas River, which once flowed by the
-site, had eaten away the eastern side. Recent geological information and
-studies of activity patterns on the site, patterns that include both
-occupational and architectural tasks, now show that the enclosure was
-always semicircular. The bluff that marks the eastern edge of the site
-today and which seems to have cut into the earthwork was formed
-thousands of years before building ever started. In fact, the bluff edge
-has probably retreated very little since the time of earthwork
-construction.
-
-The ridges were divided into five sectors by four aisles, or corridors.
-These openings range from 35 to 160 feet in width. They did not converge
-at a single point in the middle of the enclosure; neither did they
-divide the encircling embankments into equal-size areas.
-
-The middle of the enclosure, or plaza, was relatively flat and covered
-an area of about 37 acres. At the eastern edge lay an oval mound (Bluff
-Mound). Whether it was built during Poverty Point times or during the
-Civil War, as claimed by some, is not certain.
-
-Outside the central area were other earthworks (Figure 4). These
-included mounds and other embankments, as well as depressions.
-Physically connected to the outermost arc in the western sector was a
-huge mound (Mound A). The mound had an unusual shape which reminded some
-experts of a bird. It stood over 70 feet high and measured 640 feet
-along the “wing” and 710 feet from “head to tail.” The flattened, or
-so-called “tail,” section of the monster structure was actually built in
-a pit some 12 or more feet deep. Another similar but slightly smaller
-mound (Motley Mound) was built 1.5 miles north of the central
-embankments. Because it had only a lobe where the “bird’s tail” should
-have been, it was believed to be unfinished (Ford and Webb 1956:18).
-
-Three more structures were positioned along a north-south line that
-passed through the central “bird” mound. About 0.4 mile north of the big
-mound was a conical construction (Mound B) covering a possible
-cremation. Some 600 feet south lay a square, earthen structure with a
-depression in the center. The function of this mound, like all the
-others, remains uncertain. There are even doubts about its man-made
-nature. A curving ridge connected this mound with the aisle separating
-the western and southwestern sectors. About 1.6 miles further south
-along the same axis was a second dome, the Lower Jackson Mound, the
-southernmost structure of the Poverty Point complex.
-
-Some other earthworks—a comma-shaped ridge and at least one mound on the
-Jackson Place immediately south of the central enclosure—were probably
-once part of the overall complex. Unfortunately they have been
-destroyed.
-
-Some of the dirt for the earthworks had been dug from borrow pits that
-lay outside the embankments. One large one stretched along the entire
-periphery of the southwestern sector (Figures 3 & 4). A balk, or
-“bridge,” crossed the center of this depression. An even larger pit ran
-north from the bird mound to Mound B. Smaller ones dotted the area
-around the “tail” of the bird mound and north of Mound B. These would
-have formed large ponds, and one cannot help but wonder if we might not
-be looking at an ancient, municipal water system or perhaps fish ponds,
-where catfish and other species might have been “farmed” or kept until
-needed.
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 4. Plan of Earthworks at the Giant Poverty
-    Point Town.]
-
-  MOTLEY MOUND
-  Escarpment
-  Macon
-  MOUND B
-  MOUND A
-  BLUFF MOUND
-  EMBANKMENTS MOUND
-  Bayou
-  Floodplain
-  Macon Ridge
-  JACKSON COMPLEX
-  POVERTY POINT
-  LOWER JACKSON
-  Escarpment
-
-The majority of the population apparently lived on the embankments in
-the central area, but appreciable numbers of people lived outside.
-Important “suburbs” were scattered along the bluff between the central
-district and Motley Mound, to the west of Motley Mound, to the west and
-south of the bird mound, on the Jackson Place, and south to Lower
-Jackson. Other peripheral neighborhoods will no doubt eventually be
-discovered.
-
-Nothing much is known about Poverty Point houses and furnishings.
-Probable house outlines were reported from Jaketown (Ford, Phillips, and
-Haag 1955: Figure 10) and Poverty Point (Webb 1977:13). Stains in the
-soil, called postmolds, showed these structures to have been circular
-and small, around 13 to 15 feet in diameter. One possible burned house
-at Poverty Point appears to have been a semi-subterranean structure,
-framed with bent poles and covered with cane thatch and daub (dried
-mud). Interior furnishings were not recognized.
-
-Numerous postmolds have been found at many Poverty Point sites, but so
-far no other complete patterns have been identified. On the western side
-of the plaza at the Poverty Point site, an archaeologist excavated some
-unusually large pits. If these were postmolds, they held posts the size
-of grown trees! Too big for ordinary or even superordinary residences,
-these huge posts are said by some to have been markers for important
-days like equinoxes and solstices, an American Stonehenge.
-
-
-
-
-                                 FOODS
-
-
-When the real size and magnificence of Poverty Point came to be realized
-in the 1950s, it was believed that such developments were possible only
-when agriculture or a similarly efficient means of food production were
-known. In North America this agriculture was assumed to be based on
-corn, beans and squash because when Europeans arrived in the New World,
-these were the staple crops. But evidence for agriculture involving
-these foods has so far not been found in indisputable Poverty Point
-contexts. This lack was not altogether due to recovery or identification
-problems because plant remains have turned up at several sites,
-including Poverty Point itself.
-
-Poverty Point culture might have developed without agriculture. One idea
-was that ordinary hunting, fishing, and collecting in special localities
-could have been the basis of Poverty Point livelihoods (Gibson 1973). In
-areas with generous expanses of elevated lands and swampy river bottoms,
-wild plant and animal foods were not only bountiful, they were present
-year-round. By precise timing of food-getting efforts with nature’s
-seasonal rhythms, Poverty Point peoples could have gotten all the food
-they needed and probably as much extra as they desired.
-
-Another suggestion was that Poverty Point life might have involved
-farming all right, but of a different kind. Mounting evidence showed
-that a unique brand of horticulture had developed in eastern North
-America before Poverty Point culture ever began. The plants that were
-grown included sunflower, sumpweed, probably goosefoot, and possibly
-others. Other than sunflower, you would be right in thinking these are
-not widely cultivated species today, although they are common garden
-plants. They are notorious weeds and modern science has produced a
-variety of herbicides to get rid of them. However, they are easy to
-propagate. Native cultivation need not have involved anything more than
-scattering seeds over open ground. These plants produced enormous
-quantities of nutritional seeds. Thus, from the point of view of return
-for amount of work invested, this kind of gardening would have been
-economically efficient. Unlike other agriculture, this kind of
-farming—if it really can be called that—would have fit in quite well
-with hunting, fishing and plant collecting.
-
-We are only starting to find out what kinds of wild foods were eaten,
-and of these, animals are better known than plants because their bones
-are more resistant to decay and are easier to find. From the Gulf to the
-northernmost inland territories, meat sources included fish, reptiles,
-small and large mammals, and birds (Smith 1974; Gagliano and Webb 1970;
-Byrd 1978; Jackson 1981). Shellfish were collected at coastal sites,
-where brackish-water clams were abundant. Oysters were not commonly
-eaten. Inland villagers do not seem to have eaten freshwater mussels at
-all. Freshwater fish seem to have been the most consistent animal food,
-occurring at practically every well-preserved site throughout the Lower
-Mississippi Valley. Gar, catfish, buffalo fish, sunfish, and other
-species were caught. Various kinds of turtles were also commonly taken.
-Alligators and even snakes were sometimes eaten. Deer were important
-sources of meat everywhere, probably ranking close to fish in terms of
-overall contribution to local diets. Cottontail and swamp rabbits,
-opossums, raccoons, squirrels, and other small mammals were hunted, as
-were turkeys, sandhill cranes, and other kinds of birds. There seems to
-have been considerable region-to-region and perhaps site-to-site
-differences in the importance of small mammals and birds.
-
-Plant foods identified from Poverty Point refuse and cooking pits
-include hickory nuts, pecans, acorns, walnuts, persimmons, wild grapes,
-wild beans, hackberries, and seeds from honey locust, goosefoot,
-knotweed, and doveweed (?) (Shea 1978; Woodiel 1981; Jackson 1981; Byrd
-and Neuman 1978).
-
-These remains are far from a complete list of Poverty Point table fare.
-Food residues have only been recovered at a handful of sites, far too
-few to make sweeping generalizations about Poverty Point subsistence.
-Differences in archaeological collecting methods and in preservation
-conditions from site to site inhibit detailed comparison. Present
-information will not allow us to say what foods were preferred or to
-work out their relative contributions to villagers’ diets.
-
-Due to these problems, only general conclusions can be drawn. Even
-though the quest for food remains has only just begun in earnest, the
-failure of corn, beans and squash to turn up anywhere casts considerable
-doubt about the traditional view of Poverty Point peoples as farmers. As
-a matter of fact, of these three crops important in Southeastern Indian
-diets at A. D. 1600, only squash has been found anywhere in the eastern
-United States as early as Poverty Point times (Byrd and Neuman 1978).
-Since we do not know if the goosefoot and knotweed seeds found at
-Poverty Point sites were domesticated or wild varieties, we cannot be
-certain whether or not Poverty Point peoples had gardens of these native
-plants. All we really know, at present, is that Poverty Point
-communities throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley ate wild plants and
-animals. In the final analysis, we may anticipate that there was no
-single, uniform pattern of obtaining food in the Lower Mississippi
-Valley. Geographic and cultural differences were just too great.
-
-
-
-
-                             EVERYDAY TOOLS
-
-
-Hunting and collecting were basic to Poverty Point economy everywhere,
-and rather specialized equipment was designed to aid in these food
-quests. The bow and arrow was unknown. The javelin was the main hunting
-device. These throwing spears were tipped with a variety of stone
-points. Some points, like the ones illustrated in Figure 5, were
-exclusive Poverty Point styles, but many were forms which had been made
-for hundreds, even thousands, of years before.
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 5. Javelin Points. a-b, Motley; c-d, f, Epps;
-    e, Pontchartrain. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]
-
-Casting distance and power were increased by the use of atlatls, or
-spear-throwers. Shaped like oversized crochet needles, atlatls were held
-in the throwing hand with the hooked end inserted into a shallow socket
-in the butt of the spear (Figure 6). Hurled with a smooth, gliding
-motion, the javelin was released toward the target while the atlatl
-remained in the hand.
-
-Atlatl hooks were sometimes made of carved antler (Webb 1977, Figure
-26), and polished stone weights supposedly were attached to the wooden
-handles. These atlatl weights came in a variety of sizes and shapes,
-including rectangular, diamond, oval, and boat-shaped bars and a host of
-unusual forms (Figure 7). Some were quite elaborate with lustrous
-finishes and engraved decorations. Repair holes reveal their value to
-owners.
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 6. Throwing a Javelin with an Atlatl. Closeup
-    Shows How Atlatl Hook Is Attached to End of Spear.]
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 7. Atlatl Weights. a-c, e, Gorgets; d,
-    Triangular Tablet with Cross-Hatched Decoration; f-g, Narrow-Ended,
-    Rectangular Tablets. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]
-
-The hunter also used plummets (Figure 8). These objects were ground from
-heavy lumps of magnetite, hematite, limonite, and occasionally other
-stones. Shaped like plumb bobs or big teardrops, they often had
-encircling grooves or drilled holes in the small end. Several
-explanations of their function have been suggested, but the idea that
-they were bola weights seems most likely.
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 8. Hematite Plummets. a-d, Perforated Variety;
-    e-g, Grooved Variety. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]
-
-Other kinds of hunting equipment, such as nets, snares, traps, etc.,
-were probably used by Poverty Point hunters, but because they were made
-of materials that decay easily, their use can only be determined because
-the bones of nocturnal animals occur among food remains. The presence of
-fishbones, ranging from tiny minnows to giant gar, implies that
-fishermen used some sort of device or technique for mass catches. None
-of the fishing equipment, known from contemporary villages like Bayou
-Jasmine near Lake Pontchartrain (Duhe 1976), has been recognized at
-Poverty Point villages.
-
-We know that men and women must have used other tools to obtain food,
-but we are unable to say which of the many other chipped and ground
-items were used in this way. Gathering plant foods such as nuts, acorns,
-seeds, fruits, berries, greens, and “vegetables” probably did not
-require implements, other than what may have been handy. Digging tubers
-would have required some sort of device, but it need not have been
-anything other than a convenient pointed stick. However, hoe-like tools
-have been found at several Poverty Point villages and in abundance at
-Terral Lewis, a small hamlet about 10 miles southeast of Poverty Point.
-Some of these objects have coatings which look like melted glass. The
-coatings are fused opal, produced when the “hoes” cut through sod. These
-artifacts might have been real hoes used to till gardens, but in view of
-the total absence of domesticated plant remains from Poverty Point
-sites, this function remains unconfirmed.
-
-Foods were prepared with a variety of implements. Meat could have been
-cut up with the aid of heavy chipped bifaces (“cleavers”) and sharp
-flakes or blades (“knives”). Battered rocks, pitted stones, and mortars
-might have served to pound nuts, acorns, and seeds into flour and oil
-(Figure 9).
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 9. Ground Stone Tools. a-b, Abraders; c,
-    Pitted Stone; d, Mortar. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]
-
-Cooking was done over hearths and in earth ovens. The earth oven was an
-ingenious Poverty Point invention. Nothing more than a hole in the
-ground to which hot baked clay objects were added, the earth oven was an
-efficient heat-regulating and energy-conserving facility. Small objects
-of baked clay were used to heat these baking pits (Figure 10). These
-little objects were hand molded. Fingers, palms, and sometimes tools
-were used to fashion dozens of different styles. These objects are a
-distinguishing hallmark of Poverty Point culture. So common are they
-that archaeologists refer to them as Poverty Point objects.
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 10. Baked Clay Heating Objects. a,
-    Cylindrical; b-c, Cross-Grooved; d, Biconical Grooved; e, Biconical
-    Plain; f, Melon-Shaped. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]
-
-Modern experiments in earth oven cooking have been conducted (Hunter
-1975; Gibson 1975). It was discovered through these experiments that the
-shapes of clay objects used determined the intensity and duration of
-temperatures inside the pits. This might have been a way of regulating
-cooking conditions, just like setting the time and power level in modern
-microwave ovens. Another important aspect of earth oven cooking is that
-it would have conserved firewood, which must have been a precious
-commodity around long-occupied villages.
-
-Like modern Americans, Poverty Point peoples had a variety of vessels
-and contraptions for cooking, storage, and simple containment. They used
-vessels—pots and bowls—made of stone and baked clay. Stone vessels were
-chiseled out of soft sandstone and steatite (a dense, soft rock). Most
-stone vessels were plain but a few had decorations. Holes drilled near
-cracks show that these vessels were often repaired. Steatite was
-imported by the tons to the Poverty Point site from quarries in northern
-Georgia and Alabama (Webb 1944, 1977).
-
-The Poverty Point pottery vessels mark the initial appearance of this
-kind of container in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Although not
-abundant, their presence has been accorded great historical significance
-by archaeologists. One archaeologist even argued that the art of making
-pottery was learned from Indians in South or Central America or through
-intermediaries along the Atlantic and eastern Gulf coasts. This view is
-very controversial. Other archaeologists prefer to think that ceramics,
-whatever their origin, were made by later people and that their
-appearance in Poverty Point garbage deposits was due to subsequent
-disturbances which churned and mixed earlier and later remains. And then
-there are other archaeologists who contend that Poverty Point people
-developed and made pottery largely on their own.
-
-The extreme differences in pottery throughout the various Poverty Point
-territories support the latter view. In order to prevent cracking, some
-Poverty Point potters added vegetable fibers to the clay; others put
-sand and grit, bone particles, and hard lumps of clay; others added
-nothing. Decorations do seem to have followed rather universal styles,
-but each group of potters seems to have modified them to suit local
-tastes and to have added new features of their own.
-
-Many other tools were used in everyday tasks of building houses,
-butchering animals and making other tools. We know Poverty Point peoples
-used stone tools for these jobs and probably also used wood, bone and
-antler ones, as well. Most of these were very similar to those used by
-earlier people.
-
-Items such as hammerstones, whetstones, polishers, and others, were used
-mainly in a natural condition and required little or no preparation
-themselves. The characteristic shapes and signs of alteration that
-permit them to be recognized today got there through use and not
-intentional design.
-
-Other tools were carefully shaped. Gouges, adzes, axes, and drills fall
-into this category. The objects were chipped from large pieces of gravel
-or big flakes into desired shapes. Often polish or tiny grooves appear
-on the working edges of these tools, which leads us to suspect that they
-were used to chop and carve wood, dig holes, and drill substances.
-
-Some of these items, especially celts and adzes (cutting tools with the
-blades set at right angles to the handles), have counterparts of ground
-and polished stone. These smoothed objects were made by chipping,
-battering, grinding, and polishing in combination or singly. Whether
-these more elaborate forms were used like their chipped varieties is
-difficult to say, but they probably were.
-
-There is another group of chipped stone artifacts which is one of the
-most abundant tool classes at the Poverty Point and Jaketown sites and
-which occurs in respectable numbers at many Poverty Point villages (Webb
-1977:42). These mysterious objects are called microliths. The most
-common form has been dubbed a Jaketown perforator (Haag and Webb 1953:
-Ford and Webb 1956). Typically, perforators are tiny artifacts, made
-from blades and flakes; they have one bulbous end and a narrow point.
-They were originally presumed to be drills or punches, but experiments
-showed that they could have been worn-out scrapers, resulting from
-whittling antler, bone, and perhaps wood (Ford and Webb 1956:77). Their
-abundance at Poverty Point and Jaketown suggests a rather commonplace
-function, and perhaps the experimental results have been rightly
-interpreted. Recently, however, an archaeologist made a revealing
-discovery. He noticed an obstruction in the bottom of an unfinished hole
-that was drilled in the center of a narrow-ended, rectangular stone
-tablet. Using a straight pin, he dislodged a small flint object. It was
-the broken end of a Jaketown perforator; so perhaps, they were used as
-drills after all!
-
-
-
-
-                    SYMBOLIC OBJECTS AND CEREMONIES
-
-
-Poverty Point culture had many unique objects, but perhaps most
-important were its artifacts of personal adornment and symbolic meaning.
-In no other preceding or contemporary culture were so many ornaments and
-status symbols produced. Stone beads, made mostly of red jasper,
-predominated, but many other unusual objects were manufactured. Pendants
-were made in a multitude of geometric and zoomorphic shapes. Dominant
-were birds, bird heads, animal claws, foot effigies, turtles, and open
-clam shell replicas (Figure 11). Small, in-the-round carvings of
-“locusts” and fat-bellied owls were made and were evidently widely
-circulated, even among non-Poverty Point peoples (Webb 1971). One
-pendant from Jaketown (Webb 1977:Figure 25) was a polished tablet with a
-carved human face. Copper and galena beads and bangles were worn at the
-Poverty Point and Claiborne sites. Perforated human and animal teeth,
-cut out sections of human jaws, bone tubes, and bird bills (Webb
-1977:52-53), dredged from the bottom mucks of the bayou below the
-Poverty Point site, reveal that much more ornamentation of perishable
-materials has disappeared.
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 11. Stone Ornaments. a, g, Pendants; b,
-    Hour-Glass Bead; d-f, k, Tubular Beads; c, i-j, Fat Owl Effigy
-    Pendants; h, Clam Shell Effigy; l-m, Buttons; n, Claw Effigy.
-    Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]
-
-It would hardly be apt to describe the folks at Poverty Point as gaudily
-dressed, but by comparison with their country neighbors living in little
-villages and with their trade partners in Arkansas, Mississippi, and
-other sections of Louisiana, they must have been quite “fancy” and
-impressively clothed. Because so much personal ornamentation occurs at
-Poverty Point itself, it is conceivable that social distinctions there
-were more numerous and more rigid than anywhere else at the time. There
-was only one Poverty Point. It must have seemed like New Orleans on
-Mardi Gras, Mecca during the pilgrimage, and Mexico City on market
-day—all rolled into one.
-
-Hundreds of solid stone objects, such as cones, cylinders, spheres,
-cubes, trapezoids, buttons (Figure 11), and others, were also made by
-skilled craftsmen, mainly at the giant Poverty Point site (Webb
-1977:48). Since utilitarian functions for these small objects are
-difficult to imagine, they too must have had ornamental, symbolic, or,
-perhaps, even religious meanings.
-
-Religious and other symbolic purposes might have been served by stone
-pipes. Most were shaped like ice-cream cones or fat cigars. Other
-smoking tubes, made of baked clay, may have been the “poor man’s”
-versions of sacred pipes in regional communities outside the sphere of
-direct Poverty Point control. At the Poverty Point site, tubular clay
-pipes may have served more ordinary, nonreligious purposes. The presence
-of pipes, however, suggests that they might have been the first calumets
-used by Southeastern Indians; calumets being the most sacred symbols of
-intertribal relations, used to proclaim war and peace and to honor and
-salute important ceremonies and visiting dignitaries.
-
-Other sacred objects may have included the small, crudely molded, clay
-figurines depicting seated women, many of whom appear to be pregnant
-(Figure 12). Heads were nearly always missing, although whether or not
-they were snapped off deliberately during ceremonies is purely
-conjectural. Perhaps, smaller, decorated versions of clay cooking
-objects may have had religious or social symbolic value as well.
-
-It is also suspected that regular everyday artifacts could be turned
-into sacred ones under certain circumstances. This probably explains the
-200 to 300 steatite vessels that were broken and buried in an oval pit a
-little southwest of the biggest mound at the Poverty Point site (Webb
-1944). They must have been an offering of some kind. Other deposits of
-steatite vessels, both whole and broken, were found at the Claiborne
-site on the Gulf Coast (Gagliano and Webb 1970; Bruseth 1980). Religious
-and social meaning can be ascribed to virtually anything, and there need
-not be any recognizable intrinsic value or unusualness. No doubt
-thousands of other artifacts functioned in this nondomestic realm of
-behavior, and we just do not know what they are.
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 12. Female Figurines of Baked Clay. a-b, d,
-    Torsos; c, Head. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]
-
-Religion is one of the most powerful motive forces in culture. So it was
-in Poverty Point culture. It provided sanctions, direction, meaning, and
-explanation of great mysteries. It was central to group organization and
-leadership. It was the single most important source of power and was
-probably the underlying motivation for communal building projects and
-other group activities.
-
-But unlike the other early great religions of the New World—Chavin in
-South America and Olmec in Lowland Mexico—Poverty Point religion seems
-to have lacked a special religious artwork. There are a few symbolic
-artifacts, such as fat-bellied owl pendants and locust effigies that
-have a widespread distribution (Webb 1971), but these objects often
-occur in earlier contexts and in contemporary, non-Poverty Point
-cultural situations. The lack of a widespread religious art style argues
-against the possibility of a universal state religion and implies that
-local populations had independent systems of worship.
-
-The mounds and the specialized objects that functioned in ceremonial
-realms were probably all involved in some way with religion and ritual.
-Yet the nature of Poverty Point religion and worship remains unknown.
-Ancestor worship has been mentioned as one possibility. Amulets and
-charms, if correctly identified, imply beliefs in spirit forces or
-perhaps nature spirits. Bird representations in stone and earth suggest
-that birds may have been deified. Bird symbolism was an integral part of
-Southeastern religions during the Christian Era, and possibly its
-beginnings were in Poverty Point beliefs.
-
-There is little information on Poverty Point burial practices. This is
-primarily due to the fact that there have been so few excavations, and
-those have been largely confined to residential areas in villages.
-
-Mound B at Poverty Point covered an ash bed which contained fragments of
-burned bone (Ford and Webb 1956:35). Most were tiny and unidentifiable,
-but one was the upper end of a burned human femur, proving that at least
-one person had been cremated and covered by the earthen tomb.
-
-Further evidence of cremation, as well as in-flesh burial, derives from
-the Cowpen Slough site near Larto Lake in central Louisiana. Although
-conceivably later, the burials were completely enveloped by Poverty
-Point occupational deposits which seemed to be undisturbed. Since the
-burial area was not completely excavated, many question marks still
-remain. However, we know that adults and at least one juvenile were
-buried. Some were in tightly bent positions, but the positions of others
-were not determined (Baker and Webb 1978; Giardino 1981). One small pit
-in the burial area contained fragments of an unburned adult in the
-bottom and an undisturbed cremation of a juvenile near the top (Giardino
-1981). All of the excavated interments were close together, and the
-presence of surrounding postmolds (Baker and Webb 1978) may indicate
-burial beneath a house floor or some other structure. Except for a set
-of deer antlers, placed at the pelvis of one of the individuals, there
-were no apparent burial offerings; nearby artifacts seemed to be just
-household trash.
-
-The only other known human remains that apparently date to the Poverty
-Point period were some teeth and a lower jaw dredged from the bottom
-mucks of Bayou Macon, the small stream that lies at the foot of the
-bluff beneath the Poverty Point site. These were not burials, however,
-but ornaments! The molars were perforated at crown bases, and the jaw
-section may have been cut into shape. These objects were probably more
-than just decorations; they may have served as amulets, magical charms,
-battle trophies, or religious objects symbolizing revered ancestors.
-
-
-
-
-                         SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT
-
-
-Society and government are the most difficult dimensions of prehistoric
-cultures for archaeologists to reconstruct. This is because they do not
-leave material remains and must be inferred indirectly. Yet social and
-political institutions are basic to every culture. They are primary
-factors that distinguish one group of people from another.
-
-Attempts to determine social and political organization have been mainly
-limited to the Poverty Point site. It is hard, especially in light of
-accomplishments at the magnificent town of Poverty Point, to think of
-Poverty Point society as anything other than an advanced culture,
-perhaps attaining, if only momentarily, the threshold of civilization
-itself.
-
-Political organization seems to have been as sophisticated. Just to run
-a town the size of Poverty Point—the largest in the country in 1000
-B.C.—must have required administration far more complicated than that
-normally found in primitive bands or simple tribes. In addition to its
-giant size, there was an ambitious civic building program that required
-administering, as well as commercial trade enterprises that had to be
-overseen. All this pointed to strong, centralized authority and strict
-regulation.
-
-Chiefdoms had these capabilities, and if the Poverty Point community
-comprised a chiefdom, it would be the first appearance of this elaborate
-socio-political institution in the prehistoric United States (Gibson
-1974). The political arm of Poverty Point seems to have reached beyond
-the major municipal district. It no doubt embraced those nearby
-neighborhoods which stretched for more than three miles above and below
-the central enclosure. It probably extended farther to those bluff edge
-and lowland Villages within a 20 to 30 mile radius of the “capital.” If
-this 400-square-mile territory does represent the sphere of Poverty
-Point jurisdiction, it is likely that influence on the outer limits was
-restricted to special situations. Everyday life in these outlying
-villages must have normally transpired without influence or interference
-from the chiefdom center. There may have been yet another jurisdictional
-realm. Long-distance management, if not some degree of control, seems
-evident in foreign trade relations.
-
-If indeed Poverty Point did exercise three levels of administration,
-over municipality, district, and commercial trade, it would have been
-one of the most complex developments in prehistoric America north of
-Mexico. This country would not see its like again until after A.D. 1000
-and, even then, only in a few places in the East. There are dissenting
-views on the chiefdom hypothesis, and it will not be surprising if
-future studies find that different kinds of societies and distinctive
-structures, existed throughout the Lower Mississippi culture area.
-
-Regardless of whether Poverty Point communities were chiefdoms or tribes
-or whether organization was complex or simple, there is no doubt that
-kinship played a dominant role in holding people together. Communities
-were most basically groups of kinfolks, joined by blood and marriage
-ties. Social relationships were based on familiarity. Social statuses
-were established by personal abilities and by birthright. The simpler
-the organization, the more important was personal ability and
-achievement; the more complex the society, the more important became
-birthright—family standing and inheritance.
-
-Various studies have revealed that the Poverty Point community was
-well-ordered and highly structured. Part of that order and structure was
-due to social and political factors which permeated the basic fabric of
-Poverty Point society. Perhaps the best example of Poverty Point
-political organization is its well-run trading system.
-
-Long-distance trade was a hallmark of Poverty Point culture. Like most
-other aspects of the culture, there is no consensus about the nature of
-the trade. Archaeologists argue about identifications and sources of
-trade materials, especially various flints, but no one questions that
-many materials were moved over long distances. Some materials originated
-more than 700 miles from the Poverty Point site, and extreme distances
-of more than 1000 miles sometimes separate sources from final
-destinations. Trade materials were quite varied and derived from many
-areas of the eastern United States, including the Ouachita, Ozark, and
-Appalachian mountains and the Upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes
-(Figure 13).
-
-Poverty Point trade dealt primarily in rocks and minerals. At least so
-it seems. If other things were also circulated, they left no remains.
-Rocks do make good sense, however. Indians of the day made most of their
-tools out of rocks; they had no metal-working technology. Rocks do occur
-in the heartland of Poverty Point culture but mainly as gravels or as
-outcrops of crumbly sandstones, ironstones, and other soft materials,
-ill-suited for chipping. While local resources could have furnished (and
-did furnish for many Lower Mississippi cultures and many periods) all
-the essential materials for craft and tool “industries,” most of the
-materials imported by Poverty Point groups were better and prettier.
-They were obviously highly desired, and the quantities in which they
-were circulated shows that consumer demand was high and supply systems
-efficient.
-
-    [Illustration: Figure 13. Areas of Poverty Point Trade Materials.]
-
-  POVERTY POINT
-  A Copper, Banded Slate
-  B Gray Northern Flint
-  C Galena, Ozark Chert
-  D Black Bighorn Chert
-  E Novaculite, Hematite, Magnetite
-  F Quartz, Fluorite
-  G Pebble Chert
-  H Catahoula Sandstone
-  I Yellow Pebble Chert
-  J Brown Sandstone
-  K Red Jasper, Greenstone, Quartzite, Granite
-  L Steatite, Schist, Pickwick Chert
-
-The main question about Poverty Point trade concerns how materials were
-moved from one place to another. When this question first arose, one
-suggestion was that gathering expeditions were sent out from the big
-Poverty Point site itself (Ford and Webb 1956:125-126). Later, other
-means were proposed, means ranging from the activities of wandering
-merchants to ceremonial exchange systems connected with widespread
-festivals or religious proselytizing.
-
-It seems that several Poverty Point villages, located north of the
-Poverty Point site, produced evidence that they were more directly
-involved with importation and exportation of certain rocks than was
-Poverty Point (Brasher 1973). In other words, these villages—Jaketown in
-Mississippi, Deep Bayou in southeastern Arkansas, and others—seemed to
-have been important trade outposts, where exotic materials, moving
-southward from northern source areas, were amassed and then locally
-distributed. The remainder, perhaps the surplus or a quota, was then
-sent on to the primary trade “market,” the huge town at Poverty Point.
-There, a major share of imported materials was consumed by folks living
-in the “city limits” and by their neighbors in little surrounding
-hamlets.
-
-From Poverty Point, significant quantities of exotic raw materials were
-shipped further southward all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. At least
-some southbound exports were prefabricated before shipment. South
-Louisiana “markets” received a variety of raw materials but not a full
-array.
-
-Several considerations are crucial to understanding Poverty Point trade.
-First, materials from outside the region, as well as local materials,
-were traded. Second, Poverty Point territories, though scattered and
-widely separated, lay on or near an interconnected system of waterways
-ultimately tied to the Mississippi River. This certainly supports the
-belief of the importance of waterborne transport, especially in view of
-the bulk of some imported materials. Third, geographic location looms as
-a major factor in import-export operations. There can be no question of
-the importance of the principal town of Poverty Point in the entire
-trade network. This major settlement did not fall at the geographic
-center of the exchange area but near the common junction of the major
-rivers that served as trade routes. Along these rivers between Poverty
-Point and sources of exotic materials were the trade outposts.
-
-There are several equally plausible ways of looking at Poverty Point
-trade based on our presently limited knowledge. There are additionally
-many things we will probably never be able to find out, such as the
-motivation for trade and the circumstances under which it transpired
-among participating communities. For example, were trade relationships
-based on common political alliances or allegiances? Were religious ties
-paramount? Were purely capitalistic motives involved? Although we do not
-understand why it occurred, we are beginning to understand its mechanics
-a little better. The following is offered as one plausible
-reconstruction of _how_ Poverty Point trade might have operated.
-
-The capital of Poverty Point trade was the giant town of Poverty Point.
-It was the hub—the one place where all trade lines converged. It was the
-place where raw material and commodity shipments were destined. Other
-villages, located on rivers which joined Poverty Point with source areas
-of exotic materials, became important as trade outposts—gateway
-communities more directly involved with primary acquisition and initial
-relay of materials. It is probable that these outposts, like Jaketown
-and Deep Bayou, maintained rather exclusive connections with the peoples
-who were directly responsible for quarrying or collecting trade
-materials or through whom such materials had to first circulate. After
-amassing stocks of raw materials and extracting that portion essential
-for local use, these trade outposts then shipped the bulk of the
-commodities on to Poverty Point.
-
-Some materials acquired by these gateway outposts never seem to have
-been passed on to the ultimate marketplace and others were sent on in
-small quantities compared with amounts actually obtained. It seems that
-each outpost had its own preferences for materials and that those
-supplies were used first to satisfy local needs before being exported.
-Yet some raw materials appear to have passed through these outposts
-without major local withdrawals. Perhaps Poverty Point was able to
-exercise monopolies on certain materials, though the ultimate source of
-power or persuasion used to insure them is unknown.
-
-Once materials arrived at Poverty Point, several things seem to have
-happened. The lion’s share appears to have been consumed locally, mainly
-at the Poverty Point site itself but also within its immediately
-surrounding communities. The remaining portion seems to have been
-earmarked for movement on down river. Some southbound materials were
-passed on in rough, or unmodified condition, but some were trimmed and
-partially shaped. Some finished goods or artifacts also were distributed
-to southern consumers. What might have been given in exchange by these
-folks who lived in “rockless” areas of south Louisiana and south
-Mississippi is unknown but perishable goods are often mentioned in this
-connection. Limited trade in finished goods westward across southern
-Arkansas and northern Louisiana has also been documented.
-
-It should be reemphasized that this reconstruction of Poverty Point
-trade is speculative. It is based on current data and current
-appreciation of prehistoric trade relationships. Yet there are many
-things we do not understand about Poverty Point trade, and the final
-word on this subject has not yet been spoken.
-
-
-
-
-                           A FINAL APPRAISAL
-
-
-The preceding view of Poverty Point culture has been written much like
-an ethnographer might have described it if he had been able to go back
-some 3000 years in the past. Unfortunately, time travel and direct
-observation of extinct cultures are beyond our capabilities, and that is
-why much of the Poverty Point story must be written with such words as:
-seems, appears, perhaps, maybe, and other equivocal terms. The Poverty
-Point story is a patchwork of facts, hypotheses, guesses, and
-speculations. Often there are many different ways to look at the same
-set of data. This is why there are so many alternative interpretations
-and differences of opinion among archaeologists who study this
-fascinating culture. This should not be mistaken for a bad state of
-affairs. It is good and healthy. It is a sign to all that much remains
-to be done before we can present a detailed picture in which everyone
-can be confident.
-
-But more than agreement or disagreement is the responsibility thrust
-upon everyone—archaeologist and public alike—who thirst for
-understanding of humankind. Poverty Point represents a charge and a
-commitment. The proud people who were carriers of Poverty Point culture
-are all dead. But the things they created, their magnificent
-achievements, their contributions to the saga of human development on
-this planet live on. Theirs is a legacy worth understanding.
-
-
-
-
-                            REFERENCES CITED
-
-
-Baker, William S., Jr. and Clarence H. Webb
-
-  1978 Burials at the Cowpen Slough site (16CT147). _Louisiana
-        Archaeological Society, Newsletter_ 5(2):16-18.
-
-Brasher, Ted. J.
-
-  1973 _An investigation of some central functions of Poverty Point._
-        Unpublished M.A. thesis, Northwestern State University,
-        Natchitoches.
-
-Bruseth, James E.
-
-  1980 Intrasite structure at the Claiborne site. In Caddoan and Poverty
-        Point archaeology: essays in honor of Clarence Hungerford Webb,
-        edited by Jon L. Gibson. _Louisiana Archaeology_ 6 for
-        1979:283-318.
-
-Byrd, Kathleen M.
-
-  1978 Zooarchaeological remains. In The peripheries of Poverty Point,
-        by Prentice M. Thomas, Jr. and L. Janice Campbell. _New World
-        Research Report of Investigations_ 12:238-244.
-
-Byrd, Kathleen M. and Robert W. Neuman
-
-  1978 Archaeological data relative to prehistoric subsistence in the
-        Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, edited by Sam B. Hilliard.
-        _Geoscience and Man_ 19:9-21.
-
-Duhe, Brian
-
-  1976 Preliminary evidence of a seasonal fishing activity at Bayou
-        Jasmine. _Louisiana Archaeology_ 3:33-74.
-
-Ford, James A.
-
-  1955 The puzzle of Poverty Point. _Natural History_ 64(9):466-472.
-
-Ford, James A.
-
-  1969 A comparison of Formative cultures in the Americas, diffusion of
-        the psychic unity of man. _Smithsonian Contributions to
-        Anthropology_ 11.
-
-Ford, James A., Philip Phillips, and William G. Haag
-
-  1955 The Jaketown site in West-Central Mississippi. _American Museum
-        of Natural History, Anthropological Papers_ 45(1).
-
-Ford, James A. and Clarence H. Webb
-
-  1956 Poverty Point, a Late Archaic site in Louisiana. _American Museum
-        of Natural History, Anthropological Papers_ 46(1).
-
-Gagliano, Sherwood M. and Clarence H. Webb
-
-  1970 Archaic-Poverty Point transition at the Pearl River mouth. In The
-        Poverty Point Culture, edited by Bettye J. Broyles and Clarence
-        H. Webb. _Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Bulletin_
-        12:47-72.
-
-Giardino, Marco
-
-  1981 (Untitled). Unpublished MS, on file with author, Tulane
-        University, New Orleans, Louisiana.
-
-Gibson, Jon L.
-
-  1973 _Social systems at Poverty Point, an analysis of intersite and
-        intrasite variability._ Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Methodist
-        University. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.
-
-  1974 Poverty Point, the first North American chiefdom. _Archaeology_
-        27(2):96-105.
-
-  1975 Fire pits at Mount Bayou (16CT35), Catahoula Parish, Louisiana.
-        _Louisiana Archaeology_ 2:201-218.
-
-Haag, William G. and Clarence H. Webb
-
-  1953 Microblades at Poverty Point sites. _American Antiquity_
-        18(3):245-248.
-
-Hunter, Donald G.
-
-  1975 Functional analysis of Poverty Point clay objects. _Florida
-        Anthropologist_ 28(1):57-71.
-
-Jackson, H. Edwin
-
-  1981 Recent research on Poverty Point period subsistence and
-        settlement systems: test excavations at the J. W. Copes site in
-        northeast Louisiana. _Louisiana Archaeology_ 8:73-86.
-
-Kuttruff, Carl
-
-  1975 The Poverty Point site: north sector test excavation. _Louisiana
-        Archaeology_ 2:129-151.
-
-Shea, Andrea B.
-
-  1978 Botanical remains. In The peripheries of Poverty Point, by
-        Prentice M. Thomas, Jr. and L. Janice Campbell. _New World
-        Research Report of Investigations_ 12:245-260.
-
-Smith, Brent W.
-
-  1974 A preliminary identification of faunal remains from the Claiborne
-        site. _Mississippi Archaeology_ 9(5):1-14.
-
-Webb, Clarence H.
-
-  1944 Stone vessels from a northeast Louisiana site. _American
-        Antiquity_ 9(4):386-394.
-
-  1971 Archaic and Poverty Point zoomorphic locust beads. _American
-        Antiquity_ 36(1):105-114.
-
-  1977 The Poverty Point culture. _Geoscience and Man_ 17.
-
-Woodiel, Deborah K.
-
-  1981 Survey and excavation at the Poverty Point site, 1978.
-        _Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Bulletin_ 24:9-11.
-
-
-                      Anthropological Study Series
-
-             No. 1 On the Tunica Trail by Jeffrey P. Brain
-  No. 2 The Caddo Indians of Louisiana by Clarence H. Webb & Hiram F.
-                                Gregory
- No. 3 The Role of Salt in Eastern North American Peoples by Ian Brown
-         No. 4 El Nuevo Constante by Charles E. Pearson, et al.
-        No. 5 Preserving Louisiana’s Legacy by Nancy W. Hawkins
-   No. 6 Louisiana Prehistory by Robert W. Neuman & Nancy W. Hawkins
-                  No. 7 Poverty Point by Jon L. Gibson
-
-
-                Publications can be obtained by writing
-
-                         Division of Archeology
-                             P.O. Box 44242
-                            Baton Rouge, LA
-
-
-
-
-                          Transcriber’s Notes
-
-
-—Silently corrected a few typos.
-
-—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
-  is a government public document, and can be freely copied and
-  distributed.
-
-—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
-  _underscores_.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poverty Point, by Jon L. Gibson
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: Poverty Point
-       Anthropological Study No. 7
-
-Author: Jon L. Gibson
-
-Release Date: August 16, 2020 [EBook #62948]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POVERTY POINT ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-<div id="cover" class="img">
-<img id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Poverty Point: A Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley" width="769" height="1200" />
-</div>
-<div class="box">
-<p class="center smaller">Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism
-<br />Louisiana Archaeological Survey and Antiquities Commission
-<br />Anthropological Study No. 7</p>
-<h1>POVERTY POINT</h1>
-<div class="img" id="imgx1">
-<img src="images/p00.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="296" />
-<p class="pcap"><span class="center">Bird design from Poverty Point stone art.</span></p>
-</div>
-<p class="center small">Baton Rouge, Louisiana</p>
-</div>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_i">i</div>
-<p class="center"><b>STATE OF LOUISIANA</b></p>
-<p class="center">Edwin W. Edwards
-<br /><i>Governor</i></p>
-<p class="center"><b>DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE, RECREATION AND TOURISM</b></p>
-<p class="center">Noelle LeBlanc
-<br /><i>Secretary</i></p>
-<p class="center"><b>ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY AND ANTIQUITIES COMMISSION</b></p>
-<p class="center"><i>Ex-Officio Members</i></p>
-<table class="center">
-<tr><td class="l">Dr. Kathleen Byrd </td><td class="r"><i>State Archaeologist</i></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l">Mr. Robert B. DeBlieux </td><td class="r"><i>Assistant Secretary</i>, Office of Cultural Development</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l">Mr. B. Jim Porter </td><td class="r"><i>Secretary</i>, Department of Natural Resources</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="l">Mrs. Dorothy M. Taylor </td><td class="r"><i>Secretary</i>, Department of Urban and Community Affairs</td></tr>
-</table>
-<p class="center"><i>Appointed Members</i></p>
-<p class="center">Mrs. Mary L. Christovich
-<br />Mr. Brian J. Duhe
-<br />Mr. Marc Dupuy, Jr.
-<br />Dr. Lorraine Heartfield
-<br />Dr. J. Richard Shenkel
-<br />Mrs. Lanier Simmons
-<br />Dr. Clarence H. Webb</p>
-<p class="center">First Printing <span class="hst">April 1983</span>
-<br />Second Printing, with corrections <span class="hst">September 1985</span></p>
-<div class="box">
-<p>The second printing of this document was funded by the Louisiana Research
-Foundation and the U. S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
-Historic Preservation Fund. This document was published by Bourque
-Printing, Inc., P. O. Box 45070, Baton Rouge, LA 70895-4070.</p>
-</div>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_ii">ii</div>
-<h1 title=""><span class="small">POVERTY POINT:
-<br />A Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley</span></h1>
-<p class="center"><b>Jon L. Gibson</b></p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_iv">iv</div>
-<p class="tbcenter">To Carl Alexander,
-<br />with gratitude</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_vi">vi</div>
-<h2><span class="small">Editor&rsquo;s Note</span></h2>
-<p>Louisiana&rsquo;s cultural heritage dates back to approximately 10,000 B.C.
-when man first entered this region. Since that time, many other Indian
-groups have settled here. All of these groups, as well as the more recent
-whites and blacks, have left evidence of their presence in the archaeological
-record. The Anthropological Study series published by the Department of
-Culture, Recreation &amp; Tourism, Office of Cultural Development provides
-a readable account of various activities of these cultural groups.</p>
-<p>Jon L. Gibson, a professional archaeologist with a long-standing interest
-in the Poverty Point culture, is the author of &ldquo;Poverty Point: A Culture
-of the Lower Mississippi Valley,&rdquo; the seventh in the series. In this volume,
-Jon Gibson describes the Poverty Point culture&mdash;one of the most spectacular
-episodes in Louisiana&rsquo;s past. Few people realize that the Poverty Point
-site, at 1000 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.</p>
-<p>This volume tries to reconstruct from the archaeological remains the
-life of these bygone people. 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.</p>
-<p>We trust the reader will enjoy this introduction to the fascinating Poverty
-Point people.</p>
-<p><span class="lr">Kathleen Byrd</span>
-<span class="lr"><i>State Archaeologist</i></span></p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_viii">viii</div>
-<h2 id="c1"><span class="small">ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS</span></h2>
-<p>Much of what I know, think, and say about Poverty Point is due to Dr.
-Clarence Webb. Our close association and collaboration on Poverty Point
-matters go back to 1969 when we cooperated in a study of the large Carl
-Alexander collection. The mutual respect and friendship spawned by that
-association have grown over the years, even though our views on the Poverty
-Point site and culture have not always coincided. We were to have
-coauthored this booklet, but circumstances would not permit. I have forged
-ahead, under his prodding, and hope the results will be to his liking. His
-thoughtful critique of an earlier version of this report has improved the current
-one immeasurably.</p>
-<p>Mitchell Hillman, Curator of the Poverty Point Commemorative Area,
-has been a constant source of information and new ideas. Walks over the
-magnificent Poverty Point site with Hillman are always new experiences.
-I have never come away from these get-togethers without being rededicated
-to delving into the many mysteries that the awe-inspiring site has to
-offer.</p>
-<p>The excellent photographs in this book are the work of Brian Cockerham,
-Ranger at the Poverty Point Commemorative Area, and the drawings
-are my own.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_1">1</div>
-<h2 id="c2"><span class="small">INTRODUCTION</span></h2>
-<p>Until a few years ago, Poverty Point culture was a major archaeological
-mystery. The mystery centered around the ruins of a large, prehistoric
-Indian settlement, the Poverty Point site in northeastern Louisiana. Poised
-on a bluff overlooking Mississippi River swamplands was a group of massive
-earthworks. It was not the earthworks themselves that were so mysterious,
-although they were unusual. Eastern North America was after all
-the acknowledged home of the &ldquo;Mound Builders,&rdquo; originally believed to be
-an extinct, superior race but now known to have been ancestors of various
-Indian tribes. No, the mystery lay in the age and the size of the earthworks.</p>
-<p>Radiocarbon dates indicated that they were built at least a thousand
-years before the birth of Christ. This was a time when Phoenicians were
-plying warm Mediterranean waters spreading trade goods and the Ugaritian
-alphabet. This was a time when the Hittites were warlords of the Middle
-East. It was before the founding of Rome; even the ascendancy of the
-Etruscans was still centuries away. Rameses II sat on the throne of Egypt.
-Moses had just led the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage in quest of the
-Promised Land. David and Solomon were kings of Israel.</p>
-<p>In America where written history is lacking, Native Americans of 2000
-to 1000 B.C. were thought to have been wandering hunters and gatherers
-living in small bands or at best simple tribes. Such unsophisticated groups
-were not considered capable of raising earthworks like those at the Poverty
-Point site. Archaeologists believed that such massive construction
-projects were possible only when large numbers of people started living together
-in permanent villages and when political control over villagers
-reached the point where labor could be organized and directed toward
-building and maintaining community projects, such as civic or religious
-centers or monuments. These conditions&mdash;large, permanent villages and effective
-political power&mdash;were normally found only among peoples whose
-economy was based on agriculture. In America that usually meant maize
-(corn).</p>
-<p>Were we to believe that Poverty Point might have successfully integrated
-these factors&mdash;large populations, political strength, and maize agriculture&mdash;while
-everyone else in America north of Mexico was still adhering
-to a much simpler existence? If so, it meant that Poverty Point was one of
-<span class="pb" id="Page_2">2</span>
-the first communities, if not <i>the</i> first, to rise above its contemporaries and
-start the long journey to becoming a truly advanced society.</p>
-<p>If Poverty Point did represent the awakening of complex society in the
-United States, how and why did it develop? Was its emergence caused by
-immigrants, bearing corn and a new religion, from somewhere in Mexico
-(Ford 1969:181)? Did it develop locally but under Mexican stimulation (Webb
-1977:60-61)? Did it come about by itself without foreign influences (Gibson
-1974)?</p>
-<p>These were some of the major questions that surrounded Poverty
-Point. The lack of agreement on these issues created an aura of mystery
-and promoted the idea that Poverty Point was an enigma, or puzzle. When
-Poverty Point was not simply being ignored in discussions of Southeastern
-prehistory during the 1950s-1960s, it was usually portrayed as an unusual
-cultural complex that burst upon the Lower Mississippi Valley landscape,
-flourished for a while, and then disappeared leaving no trace among succeeding
-cultures.</p>
-<p>Time has begun to change these perceptions. Poverty Point is no longer
-regarded as a geographic or developmental irregularity. New research
-during the last three decades has shown that the Poverty Point way of life
-was not confined to the big town at the main site, but extended over a large
-region and encompassed many peoples. Even with increased knowledge,
-Poverty Point still remains exceptional; yet it is no longer regarded as being
-out of step with Native American cultural evolution or as a historical flower
-that blossomed before its time. There are still many unresolved questions
-about Poverty Point culture. In the following pages, we will explore these
-questions and our current state of knowledge in order to present a reasonable
-picture of life in the Lower Mississippi Valley during Poverty Point
-times.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_3">3</div>
-<h2 id="c3"><span class="small">POVERTY POINT CULTURE: A DEFINITION</span></h2>
-<p>Poverty Point culture was a widespread pattern of life followed by certain
-Indian peoples in the Lower Mississippi Valley between 2000 and 700
-B.C. This general lifeway stretched roughly from a northerly point near the
-junction of the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers, (above the present-day
-town of Greenville, Mississippi) down the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf
-Coast (<a href="#fig1">Figure 1</a>). It covered parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi,
-and its influences reached as far as Florida along the eastern coast and as
-far up valley as Tennessee and Missouri.</p>
-<p>One should not get the idea that Poverty Point peoples from one end
-of this large region to the other were exactly alike. They did not comprise
-a single body of kinfolks or a nation. They almost certainly spoke different
-languages. It is likely that Poverty Point peoples were divided into a number
-of socially, politically, and ethnically separate groups.</p>
-<p>What these people did have in common was participation, to varying
-degrees, in a far-reaching system of trade and manufacture or use of certain
-artifacts. Recognition of these artifacts is how archaeologists differentiate
-between Poverty Point sites and sites of different cultures. Some
-of these characteristic artifacts include clay cooking balls, clay figurines,
-small stone tools called microflints, plummets, and finely-crafted stone
-beads and pendants (<a href="#fig2">Figure 2</a>). Several things distinguish Poverty Point
-artifacts. One is the decided preference for materials imported from other
-regions. The other is the emphasis on ground and polished stone artifacts,
-especially ornaments and other status insignias.</p>
-<p>Radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates show that Poverty Point
-culture developed over a long period of time. By 3000 B.C., many of the
-typical artifacts were already in use. A few items had appeared even earlier.
-During the next thousand years, new artifacts and new styles were
-added, and by 2000-1800 B.C., an early stage of Poverty Point culture had
-evolved in some areas. However, the period between 1500 and 700 B.C. was
-the most climactic, because that was the span dominated by the giant Poverty
-Point site.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_4">4</div>
-<div class="img" id="fig1">
-<img src="images/p01.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="1129" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 1. How the Lower Mississippi Valley Might Have Looked in 1000 B.C. Shows Courses
-of Major Rivers and Locations of Poverty Point Territories.</p>
-</div>
-<dl class="undent pcap"><dt>AREAS OF SETTLEMENT</dt>
-<dt>SITES</dt>
-<dd>POVERTY POINT</dd>
-<dd>Jaketown</dd>
-<dd>Cowpen Slough</dd>
-<dd>Claiborne</dd>
-<dt>Ouachita River</dt>
-<dt>Arkansas River</dt>
-<dt>Joe&rsquo;s Bayou</dt>
-<dt>West Fork Mississippi River</dt>
-<dt>East Fork Mississippi River</dt>
-<dt>Vermilion River</dt>
-<dt>Teche-Red River</dt>
-<dt>Louisiana boundaries and modern Mississippi River shown as dotted lines</dt></dl>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_5">5</div>
-<div class="img" id="fig2">
-<img src="images/p01a.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="1241" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 2. Artifacts Characteristic of Poverty Point Culture. a-c, Plummets; d-f, Miniature
-Stone Carvings; g-j, Poverty Point Objects; k-l, Human Figurines; m-o, Projectile
-Points. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.</p>
-</div>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_6">6</div>
-<h2 id="c4"><span class="small">SETTLEMENT</span></h2>
-<p>A map showing the Lower Mississippi Valley in 1000 B.C., during the
-zenith of Poverty Point culture, reveals some very interesting things. Population
-was concentrated in certain areas and these areas were separated
-from each other, sometimes by scores of miles (<a href="#fig1">Figure 1</a>). While this pattern
-of geographic isolation may be due in part to river erosion and spotty
-archaeological investigation, it almost surely reflects preferences for certain
-kinds of land. There were at least 10 population clusters in the area.
-The largest concentration was in the Yazoo Basin of western Mississippi.
-Another surrounded the Poverty Point site itself in the Upper Tensas Basin-Macon
-Ridge region of northeastern Louisiana.</p>
-<p>Lying between these various population clusters were stretches of uninhabited
-or lightly occupied land. In possibly one or two cases, intervening
-areas may have supported populations almost as concentrated as Poverty
-Point territories but, for various reasons, these peoples did not participate
-regularly or intensively in Poverty Point culture.</p>
-<p>Our map of 1000 B.C. shows another interesting feature. The scattered
-Poverty Point population clusters were all linked by waterways.
-Every one was tied to the Mississippi River. Even though the Mississippi
-River did not run through every concentration, its major tributaries and
-distributaries did. These interconnected streams must have been the highways
-that carried people, trade goods, and ideas.</p>
-<p>Most of the population lived in permanent villages along these streams.
-There were small, medium, and large villages, ranging in size from less than
-an acre to over 100 acres. The smallest settlements probably housed only
-a few families, while residents at some of the larger ones must have numbered
-in the hundreds, possibly even more. One site among them was a
-veritable metropolis for the day; the population at the Poverty Point site
-itself has been estimated to number several thousands (Ford and Webb
-1956; Gibson 1973). In addition to these stable villages, there were temporary
-campsites, where villagers evidently took advantage of seasonally
-available foods and other resources.</p>
-<p>Larger villages were often distinguished from smaller ones by more
-than population numbers. One or more villages in nearly every Poverty
-Point territory were set apart by public construction works, usually mounds
-and sometimes embankments. Mounds were made of dirt and were usually
-<span class="pb" id="Page_7">7</span>
-dome-shaped affairs constructed in several stages. Two unique mounds at
-the Poverty Point site have been identified as bird effigies (Ford 1955).
-Typically one mound stood at these villages, but two to eight mounds were
-present in some instances (Webb 1977:11-13).</p>
-<p>As a general rule, the number and size of these works varied directly
-with village size and population. Even though several of these mounds have
-been excavated, their purpose is still unclear. They superficially resemble
-mounds used as tombs by later cultures, but no burials have turned up in
-the Poverty Point structures. Beneath a mound of this type at the Poverty
-Point site was a bed of ashes and a burned human bone, suggesting that,
-at least in this example, it covered a cremation (Ford and Webb 1956:38).
-Embankments, or artificial ridges, were occasionally built at these bigger
-villages. In many cases, embankments seem to have been raised by a combination
-of construction and incidental accumulation of living refuse. Most
-of the giant ridges at Poverty Point seem to have grown this way (Ford and
-Webb 1956; Kuttruff 1975). However, not all of these ridges positively
-served as foundations for houses. Some served to connect mounds, others
-perhaps to mark alignments of some kind.</p>
-<p>There was evidently no standard architectural arrangement involving
-mounds and ridges, but semicircular patterns occurred most often. The
-largest example is at the giant Poverty Point town (<a href="#fig3">Figure 3</a>). Linear plans
-were also used, and some sites show no recognizable designs. These various
-arrangements have been said to reflect everything from astronomical
-observatories to possible &ldquo;fortresses.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>Of all the similarities and differences among territorial settlement patterns,
-several things stand out. Villages in each province ranged from small
-to large and from simple to complex, and every province had one village
-that stood apart from all the rest. This main village was probably the regional
-&ldquo;capital.&rdquo; Such an arrangement also seems applicable to the provinces
-themselves. They, like the villages within their bounds, can be ranked
-in importance according to the intensity of interaction with the major province.
-Lest there be any doubt, that supreme province lay along the Macon
-Ridge-Upper Tensas lowlands in extreme northeastern Louisiana. Its
-&ldquo;capital&rdquo; was the great town of Poverty Point. Because of its dominating
-influence, this magnificent town will be described in detail.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_8">8</div>
-<div class="img" id="fig3">
-<img src="images/p02.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="940" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 3. Reconstruction of the Central District of the Poverty Point Site about 1000 B.C.</p>
-</div>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_9">9</div>
-<p>It was first reported by Samuel Lockett in 1873 and was visited many
-times afterwards. However, it was during excavations, sponsored by the
-American Museum of Natural History in the early 1950s, that its true
-nature came to be realized (Ford and Webb 1956). From aerial photographs
-came the startling realization&mdash;Poverty Point was a giant earthwork. It
-was so large that the bumps and ridges, apparent from a ground-level view,
-were once thought to be natural. The symmetrical geometry revealed on
-the photographs, however, led everyone to believe that it had been built
-from a &ldquo;blueprint&rdquo; in a single, all-out construction effort. Its great size,
-coupled with the millions of artifacts scattered over and in the artificial
-constructions, gave the impression that it was home for literally thousands
-and a magnet for multitudes of visitors. Even though new information has
-begun to change some of these ideas, it has not diminished the massiveness
-of the engineering feat or appreciation for the collective spirit of those
-long-ago builders whose vision and toil is represented there.</p>
-<p>As one can see from the &ldquo;city map&rdquo; (<a href="#fig3">Figure 3</a>), the town was divided
-into several areas. The main area in the middle of town was dominated by a
-semicircular or partially octagonal enclosure. The enclosure was produced
-by six artificial, earthen embankments which formed concentric arcs. Extra
-ridges were outlined in the western sector, and the outer ridge terminated
-before reaching the south sector. The ridges were between 50 and 150 feet
-apart and about the same in width. They were 4 to 6 feet tall. Between them
-were low areas, or swales, apparently where much of the construction dirt
-had been removed. From one end of the outer arc to the other was 3950 feet,
-or nearly three-quarters of a mile. Opposite ends of the interior or smallest
-embankment were 1950 feet apart. All of the ridges terminated at the edge
-of a bluff, which dropped steeply some 20 feet below to a stream which
-paralleled the entire eastern side of the earthwork.</p>
-<p>Formerly, archaeologists suspected that the ridges formed a complete
-circle or octagon and that the Arkansas River, which once flowed by the
-site, had eaten away the eastern side. Recent geological information and
-studies of activity patterns on the site, patterns that include both
-occupational and architectural tasks, now show that the enclosure was
-always semicircular. The bluff that marks the eastern edge of the site
-today and which seems to have cut into the earthwork was formed
-thousands of years before building ever started. In fact, the bluff edge has
-probably retreated very little since the time of earthwork construction.</p>
-<p>The ridges were divided into five sectors by four aisles, or corridors.
-These openings range from 35 to 160 feet in width. They did not converge
-<span class="pb" id="Page_10">10</span>
-at a single point in the middle of the enclosure; neither did they divide the
-encircling embankments into equal-size areas.</p>
-<p>The middle of the enclosure, or plaza, was relatively flat and covered
-an area of about 37 acres. At the eastern edge lay an oval mound (Bluff
-Mound). Whether it was built during Poverty Point times or during the Civil
-War, as claimed by some, is not certain.</p>
-<p>Outside the central area were other earthworks (<a href="#fig4">Figure 4</a>). These included
-mounds and other embankments, as well as depressions. Physically
-connected to the outermost arc in the western sector was a huge mound
-(Mound A). The mound had an unusual shape which reminded some experts
-of a bird. It stood over 70 feet high and measured 640 feet along the
-&ldquo;wing&rdquo; and 710 feet from &ldquo;head to tail.&rdquo; The flattened, or so-called &ldquo;tail,&rdquo;
-section of the monster structure was actually built in a pit some 12 or more
-feet deep. Another similar but slightly smaller mound (Motley Mound) was
-built 1.5 miles north of the central embankments. Because it had only a lobe
-where the &ldquo;bird&rsquo;s tail&rdquo; should have been, it was believed to be unfinished
-(Ford and Webb 1956:18).</p>
-<p>Three more structures were positioned along a north-south line that
-passed through the central &ldquo;bird&rdquo; mound. About 0.4 mile north of the big
-mound was a conical construction (Mound B) covering a possible cremation.
-Some 600 feet south lay a square, earthen structure with a depression in
-the center. The function of this mound, like all the others, remains uncertain.
-There are even doubts about its man-made nature. A curving ridge
-connected this mound with the aisle separating the western and southwestern
-sectors. About 1.6 miles further south along the same axis was a
-second dome, the Lower Jackson Mound, the southernmost structure of the
-Poverty Point complex.</p>
-<p>Some other earthworks&mdash;a comma-shaped ridge and at least one mound
-on the Jackson Place immediately south of the central enclosure&mdash;were
-probably once part of the overall complex. Unfortunately they have been
-destroyed.</p>
-<p>Some of the dirt for the earthworks had been dug from borrow pits that
-lay outside the embankments. One large one stretched along the entire periphery
-of the southwestern sector (Figures <a href="#fig3">3</a> &amp; <a href="#fig4">4</a>). A balk, or &ldquo;bridge,&rdquo;
-crossed the center of this depression. An even larger pit ran north from the
-bird mound to Mound B. Smaller ones dotted the area around the &ldquo;tail&rdquo; of
-the bird mound and north of Mound B. These would have formed large
-ponds, and one cannot help but wonder if we might not be looking at an ancient,
-municipal water system or perhaps fish ponds, where catfish and other
-species might have been &ldquo;farmed&rdquo; or kept until needed.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_11">11</div>
-<div class="img" id="fig4">
-<img src="images/p03.jpg" alt="" width="796" height="1200" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 4. Plan of Earthworks at the Giant Poverty Point Town.</p>
-</div>
-<dl class="undent pcap"><dt>MOTLEY MOUND</dt>
-<dt>Escarpment</dt>
-<dt>Macon</dt>
-<dt>MOUND B</dt>
-<dt>MOUND A</dt>
-<dt>BLUFF MOUND</dt>
-<dt>EMBANKMENTS MOUND</dt>
-<dt>Bayou</dt>
-<dt>Floodplain</dt>
-<dt>Macon Ridge</dt>
-<dt>JACKSON COMPLEX</dt>
-<dt>POVERTY POINT</dt>
-<dt>LOWER JACKSON</dt>
-<dt>Escarpment</dt></dl>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_12">12</div>
-<p>The majority of the population apparently lived on the embankments
-in the central area, but appreciable numbers of people lived outside. Important
-&ldquo;suburbs&rdquo; were scattered along the bluff between the central district
-and Motley Mound, to the west of Motley Mound, to the west and south
-of the bird mound, on the Jackson Place, and south to Lower Jackson. Other
-peripheral neighborhoods will no doubt eventually be discovered.</p>
-<p>Nothing much is known about Poverty Point houses and furnishings.
-Probable house outlines were reported from Jaketown (Ford, Phillips, and
-Haag 1955: Figure 10) and Poverty Point (Webb 1977:13). Stains in the soil,
-called postmolds, showed these structures to have been circular and small,
-around 13 to 15 feet in diameter. One possible burned house at Poverty Point
-appears to have been a semi-subterranean structure, framed with bent poles
-and covered with cane thatch and daub (dried mud). Interior furnishings
-were not recognized.</p>
-<p>Numerous postmolds have been found at many Poverty Point sites, but
-so far no other complete patterns have been identified. On the western side
-of the plaza at the Poverty Point site, an archaeologist excavated some unusually
-large pits. If these were postmolds, they held posts the size of grown
-trees! Too big for ordinary or even superordinary residences, these huge
-posts are said by some to have been markers for important days like equinoxes
-and solstices, an American Stonehenge.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_13">13</div>
-<h2 id="c5"><span class="small">FOODS</span></h2>
-<p>When the real size and magnificence of Poverty Point came to be realized
-in the 1950s, it was believed that such developments were possible
-only when agriculture or a similarly efficient means of food production were
-known. In North America this agriculture was assumed to be based on corn,
-beans and squash because when Europeans arrived in the New World, these
-were the staple crops. But evidence for agriculture involving these foods
-has so far not been found in indisputable Poverty Point contexts. This lack
-was not altogether due to recovery or identification problems because plant
-remains have turned up at several sites, including Poverty Point itself.</p>
-<p>Poverty Point culture might have developed without agriculture. One
-idea was that ordinary hunting, fishing, and collecting in special localities
-could have been the basis of Poverty Point livelihoods (Gibson 1973). In
-areas with generous expanses of elevated lands and swampy river bottoms,
-wild plant and animal foods were not only bountiful, they were present
-year-round. By precise timing of food-getting efforts with nature&rsquo;s
-seasonal rhythms, Poverty Point peoples could have gotten all the food they
-needed and probably as much extra as they desired.</p>
-<p>Another suggestion was that Poverty Point life might have involved
-farming all right, but of a different kind. Mounting evidence showed that a
-unique brand of horticulture had developed in eastern North America before
-Poverty Point culture ever began. The plants that were grown included
-sunflower, sumpweed, probably goosefoot, and possibly others.
-Other than sunflower, you would be right in thinking these are not widely
-cultivated species today, although they are common garden plants. They
-are notorious weeds and modern science has produced a variety of herbicides
-to get rid of them. However, they are easy to propagate. Native cultivation
-need not have involved anything more than scattering seeds over
-open ground. These plants produced enormous quantities of nutritional
-seeds. Thus, from the point of view of return for amount of work invested,
-this kind of gardening would have been economically efficient. Unlike other
-agriculture, this kind of farming&mdash;if it really can be called that&mdash;would have
-fit in quite well with hunting, fishing and plant collecting.</p>
-<p>We are only starting to find out what kinds of wild foods were eaten,
-and of these, animals are better known than plants because their bones are
-more resistant to decay and are easier to find. From the Gulf to the northernmost
-<span class="pb" id="Page_14">14</span>
-inland territories, meat sources included fish, reptiles, small and
-large mammals, and birds (Smith 1974; Gagliano and Webb 1970; Byrd 1978;
-Jackson 1981). Shellfish were collected at coastal sites, where brackish-water
-clams were abundant. Oysters were not commonly eaten. Inland villagers
-do not seem to have eaten freshwater mussels at all. Freshwater fish
-seem to have been the most consistent animal food, occurring at practically
-every well-preserved site throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley. Gar,
-catfish, buffalo fish, sunfish, and other species were caught. Various kinds
-of turtles were also commonly taken. Alligators and even snakes were
-sometimes eaten. Deer were important sources of meat everywhere, probably
-ranking close to fish in terms of overall contribution to local diets. Cottontail
-and swamp rabbits, opossums, raccoons, squirrels, and other small
-mammals were hunted, as were turkeys, sandhill cranes, and other kinds
-of birds. There seems to have been considerable region-to-region and perhaps
-site-to-site differences in the importance of small mammals and birds.</p>
-<p>Plant foods identified from Poverty Point refuse and cooking pits include
-hickory nuts, pecans, acorns, walnuts, persimmons, wild grapes, wild
-beans, hackberries, and seeds from honey locust, goosefoot, knotweed, and
-doveweed (?) (Shea 1978; Woodiel 1981; Jackson 1981; Byrd and Neuman
-1978).</p>
-<p>These remains are far from a complete list of Poverty Point table fare.
-Food residues have only been recovered at a handful of sites, far too few to
-make sweeping generalizations about Poverty Point subsistence. Differences
-in archaeological collecting methods and in preservation conditions
-from site to site inhibit detailed comparison. Present information will not
-allow us to say what foods were preferred or to work out their relative contributions
-to villagers&rsquo; diets.</p>
-<p>Due to these problems, only general conclusions can be drawn. Even
-though the quest for food remains has only just begun in earnest, the failure
-of corn, beans and squash to turn up anywhere casts considerable doubt
-about the traditional view of Poverty Point peoples as farmers. As a matter
-of fact, of these three crops important in Southeastern Indian diets at A. D.
-1600, only squash has been found anywhere in the eastern United States
-as early as Poverty Point times (Byrd and Neuman 1978). Since we do not
-know if the goosefoot and knotweed seeds found at Poverty Point sites were
-domesticated or wild varieties, we cannot be certain whether or not Poverty
-Point peoples had gardens of these native plants. All we really know,
-<span class="pb" id="Page_15">15</span>
-at present, is that Poverty Point communities throughout the Lower Mississippi
-Valley ate wild plants and animals. In the final analysis, we may
-anticipate that there was no single, uniform pattern of obtaining food in the
-Lower Mississippi Valley. Geographic and cultural differences were just too
-great.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_16">16</div>
-<h2 id="c6"><span class="small">EVERYDAY TOOLS</span></h2>
-<p>Hunting and collecting were basic to Poverty Point economy everywhere,
-and rather specialized equipment was designed to aid in these food
-quests. The bow and arrow was unknown. The javelin was the main hunting
-device. These throwing spears were tipped with a variety of stone
-points. Some points, like the ones illustrated in <a href="#fig5">Figure 5</a>, were exclusive
-Poverty Point styles, but many were forms which had been made for
-hundreds, even thousands, of years before.</p>
-<div class="img" id="fig5">
-<img src="images/p04.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="688" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 5. Javelin Points. a-b, Motley; c-d, f, Epps; e, Pontchartrain. Photographs courtesy
-of Brian Cockerham.</p>
-</div>
-<p>Casting distance and power were increased by the use of atlatls, or
-spear-throwers. Shaped like oversized crochet needles, atlatls were held in
-the throwing hand with the hooked end inserted into a shallow socket in the
-butt of the spear (<a href="#fig6">Figure 6</a>). Hurled with a smooth, gliding motion, the javelin
-was released toward the target while the atlatl remained in the hand.</p>
-<p>Atlatl hooks were sometimes made of carved antler (Webb 1977, Figure
-26), and polished stone weights supposedly were attached to the wooden
-handles. These atlatl weights came in a variety of sizes and shapes, including
-rectangular, diamond, oval, and boat-shaped bars and a host of unusual
-forms (<a href="#fig7">Figure 7</a>). Some were quite elaborate with lustrous finishes and engraved
-decorations. Repair holes reveal their value to owners.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_17">17</div>
-<div class="img" id="fig6">
-<img src="images/p04a.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="1134" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 6. Throwing a Javelin with an Atlatl. Closeup Shows How Atlatl Hook Is Attached
-to End of Spear.</p>
-</div>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_18">18</div>
-<div class="img" id="fig7">
-<img src="images/p05.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="1347" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 7. Atlatl Weights. a-c, e, Gorgets; d, Triangular Tablet with Cross-Hatched Decoration;
-f-g, Narrow-Ended, Rectangular Tablets. Photographs courtesy of Brian
-Cockerham.</p>
-</div>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_19">19</div>
-<p>The hunter also used plummets (<a href="#fig8">Figure 8</a>). These objects were ground
-from heavy lumps of magnetite, hematite, limonite, and occasionally other
-stones. Shaped like plumb bobs or big teardrops, they often had encircling
-grooves or drilled holes in the small end. Several explanations of their function
-have been suggested, but the idea that they were bola weights seems
-most likely.</p>
-<div class="img" id="fig8">
-<img src="images/p05a.jpg" alt="" width="1317" height="861" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 8. Hematite Plummets. a-d, Perforated Variety; e-g, Grooved Variety. Photographs
-courtesy of Brian Cockerham.</p>
-</div>
-<p>Other kinds of hunting equipment, such as nets, snares, traps, etc.,
-were probably used by Poverty Point hunters, but because they were made
-of materials that decay easily, their use can only be determined because the
-bones of nocturnal animals occur among food remains. The presence of fishbones,
-ranging from tiny minnows to giant gar, implies that fishermen used
-some sort of device or technique for mass catches. None of the fishing
-equipment, known from contemporary villages like Bayou Jasmine near
-Lake Pontchartrain (Duhe 1976), has been recognized at Poverty Point villages.</p>
-<p>We know that men and women must have used other tools to obtain
-food, but we are unable to say which of the many other chipped and ground
-items were used in this way. Gathering plant foods such as nuts, acorns,
-seeds, fruits, berries, greens, and &ldquo;vegetables&rdquo; probably did not require
-<span class="pb" id="Page_20">20</span>
-implements, other than what may have been handy. Digging tubers would
-have required some sort of device, but it need not have been anything other
-than a convenient pointed stick. However, hoe-like tools have been found
-at several Poverty Point villages and in abundance at Terral Lewis, a small
-hamlet about 10 miles southeast of Poverty Point. Some of these objects
-have coatings which look like melted glass. The coatings are fused opal,
-produced when the &ldquo;hoes&rdquo; cut through sod. These artifacts might have been
-real hoes used to till gardens, but in view of the total absence of domesticated
-plant remains from Poverty Point sites, this function remains unconfirmed.</p>
-<p>Foods were prepared with a variety of implements. Meat could have
-been cut up with the aid of heavy chipped bifaces (&ldquo;cleavers&rdquo;) and sharp
-flakes or blades (&ldquo;knives&rdquo;). Battered rocks, pitted stones, and mortars might
-have served to pound nuts, acorns, and seeds into flour and oil (<a href="#fig9">Figure 9</a>).</p>
-<div class="img" id="fig9">
-<img src="images/p06.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="979" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 9. Ground Stone Tools. a-b, Abraders; c, Pitted Stone; d, Mortar. Photographs
-courtesy of Brian Cockerham.</p>
-</div>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_21">21</div>
-<p>Cooking was done over hearths and in earth ovens. The earth oven was
-an ingenious Poverty Point invention. Nothing more than a hole in the
-ground to which hot baked clay objects were added, the earth oven was an
-efficient heat-regulating and energy-conserving facility. Small objects of
-baked clay were used to heat these baking pits (<a href="#fig10">Figure 10</a>). These little objects
-were hand molded. Fingers, palms, and sometimes tools were used to
-fashion dozens of different styles. These objects are a distinguishing hallmark
-of Poverty Point culture. So common are they that archaeologists refer
-to them as Poverty Point objects.</p>
-<div class="img" id="fig10">
-<img src="images/p06a.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="721" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 10. Baked Clay Heating Objects. a, Cylindrical; b-c, Cross-Grooved; d, Biconical
-Grooved; e, Biconical Plain; f, Melon-Shaped. Photographs courtesy of Brian
-Cockerham.</p>
-</div>
-<p>Modern experiments in earth oven cooking have been conducted
-(Hunter 1975; Gibson 1975). It was discovered through these experiments
-that the shapes of clay objects used determined the intensity and duration
-of temperatures inside the pits. This might have been a way of regulating
-cooking conditions, just like setting the time and power level in modern microwave
-ovens. Another important aspect of earth oven cooking is that it
-would have conserved firewood, which must have been a precious commodity
-around long-occupied villages.</p>
-<p>Like modern Americans, Poverty Point peoples had a variety of vessels
-<span class="pb" id="Page_22">22</span>
-and contraptions for cooking, storage, and simple containment. They
-used vessels&mdash;pots and bowls&mdash;made of stone and baked clay. Stone vessels
-were chiseled out of soft sandstone and steatite (a dense, soft rock). Most
-stone vessels were plain but a few had decorations. Holes drilled near cracks
-show that these vessels were often repaired. Steatite was imported by the
-tons to the Poverty Point site from quarries in northern Georgia and Alabama
-(Webb 1944, 1977).</p>
-<p>The Poverty Point pottery vessels mark the initial appearance of this
-kind of container in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Although not abundant,
-their presence has been accorded great historical significance by archaeologists.
-One archaeologist even argued that the art of making pottery was
-learned from Indians in South or Central America or through intermediaries
-along the Atlantic and eastern Gulf coasts. This view is very controversial.
-Other archaeologists prefer to think that ceramics, whatever their
-origin, were made by later people and that their appearance in Poverty
-Point garbage deposits was due to subsequent disturbances which churned
-and mixed earlier and later remains. And then there are other archaeologists
-who contend that Poverty Point people developed and made pottery
-largely on their own.</p>
-<p>The extreme differences in pottery throughout the various Poverty
-Point territories support the latter view. In order to prevent cracking, some
-Poverty Point potters added vegetable fibers to the clay; others put sand
-and grit, bone particles, and hard lumps of clay; others added nothing. Decorations
-do seem to have followed rather universal styles, but each group
-of potters seems to have modified them to suit local tastes and to have added
-new features of their own.</p>
-<p>Many other tools were used in everyday tasks of building houses,
-butchering animals and making other tools. We know Poverty Point peoples
-used stone tools for these jobs and probably also used wood, bone and
-antler ones, as well. Most of these were very similar to those used by earlier
-people.</p>
-<p>Items such as hammerstones, whetstones, polishers, and others, were
-used mainly in a natural condition and required little or no preparation
-themselves. The characteristic shapes and signs of alteration that permit
-them to be recognized today got there through use and not intentional design.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_23">23</div>
-<p>Other tools were carefully shaped. Gouges, adzes, axes, and drills fall
-into this category. The objects were chipped from large pieces of gravel or
-big flakes into desired shapes. Often polish or tiny grooves appear on the
-working edges of these tools, which leads us to suspect that they were used
-to chop and carve wood, dig holes, and drill substances.</p>
-<p>Some of these items, especially celts and adzes (cutting tools with the
-blades set at right angles to the handles), have counterparts of ground and
-polished stone. These smoothed objects were made by chipping, battering,
-grinding, and polishing in combination or singly. Whether these more elaborate
-forms were used like their chipped varieties is difficult to say, but they
-probably were.</p>
-<p>There is another group of chipped stone artifacts which is one of the
-most abundant tool classes at the Poverty Point and Jaketown sites and
-which occurs in respectable numbers at many Poverty Point villages (Webb
-1977:42). These mysterious objects are called microliths. The most common
-form has been dubbed a Jaketown perforator (Haag and Webb 1953: Ford
-and Webb 1956). Typically, perforators are tiny artifacts, made from blades
-and flakes; they have one bulbous end and a narrow point. They were originally
-presumed to be drills or punches, but experiments showed that they
-could have been worn-out scrapers, resulting from whittling antler, bone,
-and perhaps wood (Ford and Webb 1956:77). Their abundance at Poverty
-Point and Jaketown suggests a rather commonplace function, and perhaps
-the experimental results have been rightly interpreted. Recently, however,
-an archaeologist made a revealing discovery. He noticed an obstruction
-in the bottom of an unfinished hole that was drilled in the center of a
-narrow-ended, rectangular stone tablet. Using a straight pin, he dislodged
-a small flint object. It was the broken end of a Jaketown perforator; so perhaps,
-they were used as drills after all!</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_24">24</div>
-<h2 id="c7"><span class="small">SYMBOLIC OBJECTS AND CEREMONIES</span></h2>
-<p>Poverty Point culture had many unique objects, but perhaps most important
-were its artifacts of personal adornment and symbolic meaning. In
-no other preceding or contemporary culture were so many ornaments and
-status symbols produced. Stone beads, made mostly of red jasper, predominated,
-but many other unusual objects were manufactured. Pendants were
-made in a multitude of geometric and zoomorphic shapes. Dominant were
-birds, bird heads, animal claws, foot effigies, turtles, and open clam shell
-replicas (<a href="#fig11">Figure 11</a>). Small, in-the-round carvings of &ldquo;locusts&rdquo; and fat-bellied
-owls were made and were evidently widely circulated, even among non-Poverty
-Point peoples (Webb 1971). One pendant from Jaketown (Webb
-1977:Figure 25) was a polished tablet with a carved human face. Copper and
-galena beads and bangles were worn at the Poverty Point and Claiborne
-sites. Perforated human and animal teeth, cut out sections of human jaws,
-bone tubes, and bird bills (Webb 1977:52-53), dredged from the bottom
-mucks of the bayou below the Poverty Point site, reveal that much more
-ornamentation of perishable materials has disappeared.</p>
-<div class="img" id="fig11">
-<img src="images/p07.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="695" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 11. Stone Ornaments. a, g, Pendants; b, Hour-Glass Bead; d-f, k, Tubular Beads; c,
-i-j, Fat Owl Effigy Pendants; h, Clam Shell Effigy; l-m, Buttons; n, Claw Effigy.
-Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.</p>
-</div>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_25">25</div>
-<p>It would hardly be apt to describe the folks at Poverty Point as gaudily
-dressed, but by comparison with their country neighbors living in little villages
-and with their trade partners in Arkansas, Mississippi, and other sections
-of Louisiana, they must have been quite &ldquo;fancy&rdquo; and impressively
-clothed. Because so much personal ornamentation occurs at Poverty Point
-itself, it is conceivable that social distinctions there were more numerous
-and more rigid than anywhere else at the time. There was only one Poverty
-Point. It must have seemed like New Orleans on Mardi Gras, Mecca during
-the pilgrimage, and Mexico City on market day&mdash;all rolled into one.</p>
-<p>Hundreds of solid stone objects, such as cones, cylinders, spheres,
-cubes, trapezoids, buttons (<a href="#fig11">Figure 11</a>), and others, were also made by skilled
-craftsmen, mainly at the giant Poverty Point site (Webb 1977:48). Since
-utilitarian functions for these small objects are difficult to imagine, they too
-must have had ornamental, symbolic, or, perhaps, even religious meanings.</p>
-<p>Religious and other symbolic purposes might have been served by stone
-pipes. Most were shaped like ice-cream cones or fat cigars. Other smoking
-tubes, made of baked clay, may have been the &ldquo;poor man&rsquo;s&rdquo; versions of sacred
-pipes in regional communities outside the sphere of direct Poverty
-Point control. At the Poverty Point site, tubular clay pipes may have served
-more ordinary, nonreligious purposes. The presence of pipes, however,
-suggests that they might have been the first calumets used by Southeastern
-Indians; calumets being the most sacred symbols of intertribal relations,
-used to proclaim war and peace and to honor and salute important
-ceremonies and visiting dignitaries.</p>
-<p>Other sacred objects may have included the small, crudely molded, clay
-figurines depicting seated women, many of whom appear to be pregnant
-(<a href="#fig12">Figure 12</a>). Heads were nearly always missing, although whether or not
-they were snapped off deliberately during ceremonies is purely conjectural.
-Perhaps, smaller, decorated versions of clay cooking objects may have
-had religious or social symbolic value as well.</p>
-<p>It is also suspected that regular everyday artifacts could be turned into
-sacred ones under certain circumstances. This probably explains the 200 to
-300 steatite vessels that were broken and buried in an oval pit a little southwest
-of the biggest mound at the Poverty Point site (Webb 1944). They must
-have been an offering of some kind. Other deposits of steatite vessels, both
-whole and broken, were found at the Claiborne site on the Gulf Coast (Gagliano
-<span class="pb" id="Page_26">26</span>
-and Webb 1970; Bruseth 1980). Religious and social meaning can be
-ascribed to virtually anything, and there need not be any recognizable intrinsic
-value or unusualness. No doubt thousands of other artifacts functioned
-in this nondomestic realm of behavior, and we just do not know what
-they are.</p>
-<div class="img" id="fig12">
-<img src="images/p08.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="344" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 12. Female Figurines of Baked Clay. a-b, d, Torsos; c, Head. Photographs courtesy
-of Brian Cockerham.</p>
-</div>
-<p>Religion is one of the most powerful motive forces in culture. So it was
-in Poverty Point culture. It provided sanctions, direction, meaning, and
-explanation of great mysteries. It was central to group organization and
-leadership. It was the single most important source of power and was probably
-the underlying motivation for communal building projects and other
-group activities.</p>
-<p>But unlike the other early great religions of the New World&mdash;Chavin in
-South America and Olmec in Lowland Mexico&mdash;Poverty Point religion seems
-to have lacked a special religious artwork. There are a few symbolic artifacts,
-such as fat-bellied owl pendants and locust effigies that have a widespread
-distribution (Webb 1971), but these objects often occur in earlier
-contexts and in contemporary, non-Poverty Point cultural situations. The
-lack of a widespread religious art style argues against the possibility of a
-universal state religion and implies that local populations had independent
-systems of worship.</p>
-<p>The mounds and the specialized objects that functioned in ceremonial
-realms were probably all involved in some way with religion and ritual. Yet
-the nature of Poverty Point religion and worship remains unknown. Ancestor
-worship has been mentioned as one possibility. Amulets and charms, if
-<span class="pb" id="Page_27">27</span>
-correctly identified, imply beliefs in spirit forces or perhaps nature spirits.
-Bird representations in stone and earth suggest that birds may have been
-deified. Bird symbolism was an integral part of Southeastern religions during
-the Christian Era, and possibly its beginnings were in Poverty Point
-beliefs.</p>
-<p>There is little information on Poverty Point burial practices. This is
-primarily due to the fact that there have been so few excavations, and those
-have been largely confined to residential areas in villages.</p>
-<p>Mound B at Poverty Point covered an ash bed which contained fragments
-of burned bone (Ford and Webb 1956:35). Most were tiny and unidentifiable,
-but one was the upper end of a burned human femur, proving
-that at least one person had been cremated and covered by the earthen
-tomb.</p>
-<p>Further evidence of cremation, as well as in-flesh burial, derives from
-the Cowpen Slough site near Larto Lake in central Louisiana. Although
-conceivably later, the burials were completely enveloped by Poverty Point
-occupational deposits which seemed to be undisturbed. Since the burial area
-was not completely excavated, many question marks still remain. However,
-we know that adults and at least one juvenile were buried. Some were
-in tightly bent positions, but the positions of others were not determined
-(Baker and Webb 1978; Giardino 1981). One small pit in the burial area contained
-fragments of an unburned adult in the bottom and an undisturbed
-cremation of a juvenile near the top (Giardino 1981). All of the excavated
-interments were close together, and the presence of surrounding postmolds
-(Baker and Webb 1978) may indicate burial beneath a house floor or
-some other structure. Except for a set of deer antlers, placed at the pelvis
-of one of the individuals, there were no apparent burial offerings; nearby
-artifacts seemed to be just household trash.</p>
-<p>The only other known human remains that apparently date to the Poverty
-Point period were some teeth and a lower jaw dredged from the bottom
-mucks of Bayou Macon, the small stream that lies at the foot of the bluff
-beneath the Poverty Point site. These were not burials, however, but ornaments!
-The molars were perforated at crown bases, and the jaw section
-may have been cut into shape. These objects were probably more than just
-decorations; they may have served as amulets, magical charms, battle trophies,
-or religious objects symbolizing revered ancestors.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_28">28</div>
-<h2 id="c8"><span class="small">SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT</span></h2>
-<p>Society and government are the most difficult dimensions of prehistoric
-cultures for archaeologists to reconstruct. This is because they do not
-leave material remains and must be inferred indirectly. Yet social and political
-institutions are basic to every culture. They are primary factors that
-distinguish one group of people from another.</p>
-<p>Attempts to determine social and political organization have been
-mainly limited to the Poverty Point site. It is hard, especially in light of accomplishments
-at the magnificent town of Poverty Point, to think of Poverty
-Point society as anything other than an advanced culture, perhaps
-attaining, if only momentarily, the threshold of civilization itself.</p>
-<p>Political organization seems to have been as sophisticated. Just to run
-a town the size of Poverty Point&mdash;the largest in the country in 1000 B.C.&mdash;must
-have required administration far more complicated than that normally
-found in primitive bands or simple tribes. In addition to its giant size,
-there was an ambitious civic building program that required administering,
-as well as commercial trade enterprises that had to be overseen. All
-this pointed to strong, centralized authority and strict regulation.</p>
-<p>Chiefdoms had these capabilities, and if the Poverty Point community
-comprised a chiefdom, it would be the first appearance of this elaborate socio-political
-institution in the prehistoric United States (Gibson 1974). The
-political arm of Poverty Point seems to have reached beyond the major municipal
-district. It no doubt embraced those nearby neighborhoods which
-stretched for more than three miles above and below the central enclosure.
-It probably extended farther to those bluff edge and lowland Villages within
-a 20 to 30 mile radius of the &ldquo;capital.&rdquo; If this 400-square-mile territory does
-represent the sphere of Poverty Point jurisdiction, it is likely that influence
-on the outer limits was restricted to special situations. Everyday life in these
-outlying villages must have normally transpired without influence or interference
-from the chiefdom center. There may have been yet another jurisdictional
-realm. Long-distance management, if not some degree of
-control, seems evident in foreign trade relations.</p>
-<p>If indeed Poverty Point did exercise three levels of administration, over
-municipality, district, and commercial trade, it would have been one of the
-most complex developments in prehistoric America north of Mexico. This
-country would not see its like again until after A.D. 1000 and, even then,
-<span class="pb" id="Page_29">29</span>
-only in a few places in the East. There are dissenting views on the chiefdom
-hypothesis, and it will not be surprising if future studies find that different
-kinds of societies and distinctive structures, existed throughout the Lower
-Mississippi culture area.</p>
-<p>Regardless of whether Poverty Point communities were chiefdoms or
-tribes or whether organization was complex or simple, there is no doubt that
-kinship played a dominant role in holding people together. Communities
-were most basically groups of kinfolks, joined by blood and marriage ties.
-Social relationships were based on familiarity. Social statuses were established
-by personal abilities and by birthright. The simpler the organization,
-the more important was personal ability and achievement; the more complex
-the society, the more important became birthright&mdash;family standing and
-inheritance.</p>
-<p>Various studies have revealed that the Poverty Point community was
-well-ordered and highly structured. Part of that order and structure was
-due to social and political factors which permeated the basic fabric of Poverty
-Point society. Perhaps the best example of Poverty Point political organization
-is its well-run trading system.</p>
-<p>Long-distance trade was a hallmark of Poverty Point culture. Like most
-other aspects of the culture, there is no consensus about the nature of the
-trade. Archaeologists argue about identifications and sources of trade materials,
-especially various flints, but no one questions that many materials
-were moved over long distances. Some materials originated more than 700
-miles from the Poverty Point site, and extreme distances of more than 1000
-miles sometimes separate sources from final destinations. Trade materials
-were quite varied and derived from many areas of the eastern United
-States, including the Ouachita, Ozark, and Appalachian mountains and the
-Upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes (<a href="#fig13">Figure 13</a>).</p>
-<p>Poverty Point trade dealt primarily in rocks and minerals. At least so
-it seems. If other things were also circulated, they left no remains. Rocks
-do make good sense, however. Indians of the day made most of their tools
-out of rocks; they had no metal-working technology. Rocks do occur in the
-heartland of Poverty Point culture but mainly as gravels or as outcrops of
-crumbly sandstones, ironstones, and other soft materials, ill-suited for
-chipping. While local resources could have furnished (and did furnish for
-many Lower Mississippi cultures and many periods) all the essential materials
-for craft and tool &ldquo;industries,&rdquo; most of the materials imported by
-Poverty Point groups were better and prettier. They were obviously highly
-desired, and the quantities in which they were circulated shows that consumer
-demand was high and supply systems efficient.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_30">30</div>
-<div class="img" id="fig13">
-<img src="images/p09.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="681" />
-<p class="pcap">Figure 13. Areas of Poverty Point Trade Materials.</p>
-</div>
-<dl class="undent pcap"><dt>POVERTY POINT</dt>
-<dt>A Copper, Banded Slate</dt>
-<dt>B Gray Northern Flint</dt>
-<dt>C Galena, Ozark Chert</dt>
-<dt>D Black Bighorn Chert</dt>
-<dt>E Novaculite, Hematite, Magnetite</dt>
-<dt>F Quartz, Fluorite</dt>
-<dt>G Pebble Chert</dt>
-<dt>H Catahoula Sandstone</dt>
-<dt>I Yellow Pebble Chert</dt>
-<dt>J Brown Sandstone</dt>
-<dt>K Red Jasper, Greenstone, Quartzite, Granite</dt>
-<dt>L Steatite, Schist, Pickwick Chert</dt></dl>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_31">31</div>
-<p>The main question about Poverty Point trade concerns how materials
-were moved from one place to another. When this question first arose, one
-suggestion was that gathering expeditions were sent out from the big Poverty
-Point site itself (Ford and Webb 1956:125-126). Later, other means
-were proposed, means ranging from the activities of wandering merchants
-to ceremonial exchange systems connected with widespread festivals or religious
-proselytizing.</p>
-<p>It seems that several Poverty Point villages, located north of the Poverty
-Point site, produced evidence that they were more directly involved
-with importation and exportation of certain rocks than was Poverty Point
-(Brasher 1973). In other words, these villages&mdash;Jaketown in Mississippi,
-Deep Bayou in southeastern Arkansas, and others&mdash;seemed to have been
-important trade outposts, where exotic materials, moving southward from
-northern source areas, were amassed and then locally distributed. The remainder,
-perhaps the surplus or a quota, was then sent on to the primary
-trade &ldquo;market,&rdquo; the huge town at Poverty Point. There, a major share of
-imported materials was consumed by folks living in the &ldquo;city limits&rdquo; and by
-their neighbors in little surrounding hamlets.</p>
-<p>From Poverty Point, significant quantities of exotic raw materials were
-shipped further southward all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. At least some
-southbound exports were prefabricated before shipment. South Louisiana
-&ldquo;markets&rdquo; received a variety of raw materials but not a full array.</p>
-<p>Several considerations are crucial to understanding Poverty Point
-trade. First, materials from outside the region, as well as local materials,
-were traded. Second, Poverty Point territories, though scattered and
-widely separated, lay on or near an interconnected system of waterways
-ultimately tied to the Mississippi River. This certainly supports the belief
-of the importance of waterborne transport, especially in view of the bulk of
-some imported materials. Third, geographic location looms as a major factor
-in import-export operations. There can be no question of the importance
-of the principal town of Poverty Point in the entire trade network.
-This major settlement did not fall at the geographic center of the exchange
-area but near the common junction of the major rivers that served as trade
-<span class="pb" id="Page_32">32</span>
-routes. Along these rivers between Poverty Point and sources of exotic
-materials were the trade outposts.</p>
-<p>There are several equally plausible ways of looking at Poverty Point
-trade based on our presently limited knowledge. There are additionally
-many things we will probably never be able to find out, such as the motivation
-for trade and the circumstances under which it transpired among
-participating communities. For example, were trade relationships based on
-common political alliances or allegiances? Were religious ties paramount?
-Were purely capitalistic motives involved? Although we do not understand
-why it occurred, we are beginning to understand its mechanics a little better.
-The following is offered as one plausible reconstruction of <i>how</i> Poverty
-Point trade might have operated.</p>
-<p>The capital of Poverty Point trade was the giant town of Poverty Point.
-It was the hub&mdash;the one place where all trade lines converged. It was the
-place where raw material and commodity shipments were destined. Other
-villages, located on rivers which joined Poverty Point with source areas of
-exotic materials, became important as trade outposts&mdash;gateway communities
-more directly involved with primary acquisition and initial relay of materials.
-It is probable that these outposts, like Jaketown and Deep Bayou,
-maintained rather exclusive connections with the peoples who were directly
-responsible for quarrying or collecting trade materials or through
-whom such materials had to first circulate. After amassing stocks of raw
-materials and extracting that portion essential for local use, these trade
-outposts then shipped the bulk of the commodities on to Poverty Point.</p>
-<p>Some materials acquired by these gateway outposts never seem to have
-been passed on to the ultimate marketplace and others were sent on in small
-quantities compared with amounts actually obtained. It seems that each
-outpost had its own preferences for materials and that those supplies were
-used first to satisfy local needs before being exported. Yet some raw materials
-appear to have passed through these outposts without major local
-withdrawals. Perhaps Poverty Point was able to exercise monopolies on
-certain materials, though the ultimate source of power or persuasion used
-to insure them is unknown.</p>
-<p>Once materials arrived at Poverty Point, several things seem to have
-happened. The lion&rsquo;s share appears to have been consumed locally, mainly
-at the Poverty Point site itself but also within its immediately surrounding
-communities. The remaining portion seems to have been earmarked for
-<span class="pb" id="Page_33">33</span>
-movement on down river. Some southbound materials were passed on in
-rough, or unmodified condition, but some were trimmed and partially
-shaped. Some finished goods or artifacts also were distributed to southern
-consumers. What might have been given in exchange by these folks who
-lived in &ldquo;rockless&rdquo; areas of south Louisiana and south Mississippi is unknown
-but perishable goods are often mentioned in this connection. Limited
-trade in finished goods westward across southern Arkansas and
-northern Louisiana has also been documented.</p>
-<p>It should be reemphasized that this reconstruction of Poverty Point
-trade is speculative. It is based on current data and current appreciation of
-prehistoric trade relationships. Yet there are many things we do not understand
-about Poverty Point trade, and the final word on this subject has
-not yet been spoken.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_34">34</div>
-<h2 id="c9"><span class="small">A FINAL APPRAISAL</span></h2>
-<p>The preceding view of Poverty Point culture has been written much
-like an ethnographer might have described it if he had been able to go back
-some 3000 years in the past. Unfortunately, time travel and direct observation
-of extinct cultures are beyond our capabilities, and that is why much
-of the Poverty Point story must be written with such words as: seems, appears,
-perhaps, maybe, and other equivocal terms. The Poverty Point story
-is a patchwork of facts, hypotheses, guesses, and speculations. Often there
-are many different ways to look at the same set of data. This is why there
-are so many alternative interpretations and differences of opinion among
-archaeologists who study this fascinating culture. This should not be mistaken
-for a bad state of affairs. It is good and healthy. It is a sign to all that
-much remains to be done before we can present a detailed picture in which
-everyone can be confident.</p>
-<p>But more than agreement or disagreement is the responsibility thrust
-upon everyone&mdash;archaeologist and public alike&mdash;who thirst for understanding
-of humankind. Poverty Point represents a charge and a commitment.
-The proud people who were carriers of Poverty Point culture are all dead.
-But the things they created, their magnificent achievements, their contributions
-to the saga of human development on this planet live on. Theirs is
-a legacy worth understanding.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_35">35</div>
-<h2 id="c10"><span class="small">REFERENCES CITED</span></h2>
-<p>Baker, William S., Jr. and Clarence H. Webb</p>
-<p class="revint2">1978 Burials at the Cowpen Slough site (16CT147). <i>Louisiana Archaeological
-Society, Newsletter</i> 5(2):16-18.</p>
-<p>Brasher, Ted. J.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1973 <i>An investigation of some central functions of Poverty Point.</i>
-Unpublished M.A. thesis, Northwestern State University,
-Natchitoches.</p>
-<p>Bruseth, James E.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1980 Intrasite structure at the Claiborne site. In Caddoan and Poverty
-Point archaeology: essays in honor of Clarence Hungerford
-Webb, edited by Jon L. Gibson. <i>Louisiana Archaeology</i> 6 for
-1979:283-318.</p>
-<p>Byrd, Kathleen M.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1978 Zooarchaeological remains. In The peripheries of Poverty Point,
-by Prentice M. Thomas, Jr. and L. Janice Campbell. <i>New World
-Research Report of Investigations</i> 12:238-244.</p>
-<p>Byrd, Kathleen M. and Robert W. Neuman</p>
-<p class="revint2">1978 Archaeological data relative to prehistoric subsistence in the
-Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, edited by Sam B. Hilliard.
-<i>Geoscience and Man</i> 19:9-21.</p>
-<p>Duhe, Brian</p>
-<p class="revint2">1976 Preliminary evidence of a seasonal fishing activity at Bayou
-Jasmine. <i>Louisiana Archaeology</i> 3:33-74.</p>
-<p>Ford, James A.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1955 The puzzle of Poverty Point. <i>Natural History</i> 64(9):466-472.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_36">36</div>
-<p>Ford, James A.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1969 A comparison of Formative cultures in the Americas, diffusion
-of the psychic unity of man. <i>Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology</i>
-11.</p>
-<p>Ford, James A., Philip Phillips, and William G. Haag</p>
-<p class="revint2">1955 The Jaketown site in West-Central Mississippi. <i>American Museum
-of Natural History, Anthropological Papers</i> 45(1).</p>
-<p>Ford, James A. and Clarence H. Webb</p>
-<p class="revint2">1956 Poverty Point, a Late Archaic site in Louisiana. <i>American Museum
-of Natural History, Anthropological Papers</i> 46(1).</p>
-<p>Gagliano, Sherwood M. and Clarence H. Webb</p>
-<p class="revint2">1970 Archaic-Poverty Point transition at the Pearl River mouth. In
-The Poverty Point Culture, edited by Bettye J. Broyles and
-Clarence H. Webb. <i>Southeastern Archaeological Conference,
-Bulletin</i> 12:47-72.</p>
-<p>Giardino, Marco</p>
-<p class="revint2">1981 (Untitled). Unpublished MS, on file with author, Tulane University,
-New Orleans, Louisiana.</p>
-<p>Gibson, Jon L.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1973 <i>Social systems at Poverty Point, an analysis of intersite and
-intrasite variability.</i> Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Methodist
-University. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1974 Poverty Point, the first North American chiefdom. <i>Archaeology</i>
-27(2):96-105.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1975 Fire pits at Mount Bayou (16CT35), Catahoula Parish, Louisiana.
-<i>Louisiana Archaeology</i> 2:201-218.</p>
-<p>Haag, William G. and Clarence H. Webb</p>
-<p class="revint2">1953 Microblades at Poverty Point sites. <i>American Antiquity</i>
-18(3):245-248.</p>
-<div class="pb" id="Page_37">37</div>
-<p>Hunter, Donald G.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1975 Functional analysis of Poverty Point clay objects. <i>Florida Anthropologist</i>
-28(1):57-71.</p>
-<p>Jackson, H. Edwin</p>
-<p class="revint2">1981 Recent research on Poverty Point period subsistence and settlement
-systems: test excavations at the J. W. Copes site in
-northeast Louisiana. <i>Louisiana Archaeology</i> 8:73-86.</p>
-<p>Kuttruff, Carl</p>
-<p class="revint2">1975 The Poverty Point site: north sector test excavation. <i>Louisiana
-Archaeology</i> 2:129-151.</p>
-<p>Shea, Andrea B.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1978 Botanical remains. In The peripheries of Poverty Point, by
-Prentice M. Thomas, Jr. and L. Janice Campbell. <i>New World
-Research Report of Investigations</i> 12:245-260.</p>
-<p>Smith, Brent W.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1974 A preliminary identification of faunal remains from the Claiborne
-site. <i>Mississippi Archaeology</i> 9(5):1-14.</p>
-<p>Webb, Clarence H.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1944 Stone vessels from a northeast Louisiana site. <i>American Antiquity</i>
-9(4):386-394.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1971 Archaic and Poverty Point zoomorphic locust beads. <i>American
-Antiquity</i> 36(1):105-114.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1977 The Poverty Point culture. <i>Geoscience and Man</i> 17.</p>
-<p>Woodiel, Deborah K.</p>
-<p class="revint2">1981 Survey and excavation at the Poverty Point site, 1978. <i>Southeastern
-Archaeological Conference, Bulletin</i> 24:9-11.</p>
-<hr class="dwide" />
-<p class="tbcenter"><b><span class="large">Anthropological Study Series</span></b></p>
-<p class="center">No. 1 On the Tunica Trail by Jeffrey P. Brain
-<br />No. 2 The Caddo Indians of Louisiana by Clarence H. Webb &amp; Hiram F. Gregory
-<br />No. 3 The Role of Salt in Eastern North American Peoples by Ian Brown
-<br />No. 4 El Nuevo Constante by Charles E. Pearson, et al.
-<br />No. 5 Preserving Louisiana&rsquo;s Legacy by Nancy W. Hawkins
-<br />No. 6 Louisiana Prehistory by Robert W. Neuman &amp; Nancy W. Hawkins
-<br />No. 7 Poverty Point by Jon L. Gibson</p>
-<p class="tbcenter">Publications can be obtained by writing</p>
-<p class="center">Division of Archeology
-<br />P.O. Box 44242
-<br />Baton Rouge, LA</p>
-<h2>Transcriber&rsquo;s Notes</h2>
-<ul>
-<li>Silently corrected a few typos.</li>
-<li>Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is a government public document, and can be freely copied and distributed.</li>
-<li>In the text versions only, text in <i>italics</i> is delimited by _underscores_.</li>
-</ul>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
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