Poverty Point's Ancient Mounds
**Editor's Note:
“It’s a huge big deal,” explains archaeologist Dr. Diana Greenlee, about an effort underway to have the ancient mounds at Poverty Point, Louisiana named a World Heritage Site. “It puts us in some pretty good company…Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, and the pyramids in Egypt.”
And the multi-year, multi-part effort to gain that cherished
recognition is now in its final lap. Part of that effort has been clearing the mounds of their forestation, both because the root balls pulled up when an aging tree population falls were harming them, and because visitors can now better appreciate how they looked w
hen they were first built.“The final submission will be in January 2013,” Greenlee explains. “After that they will send a mission out to evaluate the site, and they we will hear the decision in early summer of 2014.”
As it happens, our own Lawnchair Gardener has
a personal passion for the history there, as well as some history of his own at one of the archaeological digs there some years ago. Many have speculated about the mysteries presented by those mounds. What follows is Leon Standifer’s personal ponderings on that subject.
About three thousand years ago a group of Native Americans were wandering around in northeast Louisiana, “just a lookin’ for a home.”
They came to a hill overlooking a stream and miles of marshland, with a slight slope at one end that led down to the stream. The High Priest pressed his staff into the ground and said: “This is our high place. Here we will build a city that will be honored throughout all of North America!”
That might not be the way it happened but it is certainly the way it might have happened. Friends, 1700 to 1100 BC was a long time ago, and archeologists still argue over nearly every idea of just how the mounds at Poverty Point came to be.
The solid fact is that there are remnants of what was, at that time, the largest and most complex earthworks in North America. (The mound complex at Cahokia in Illinois is much larger but is not nearly so old.)
Today it is a state park and a spectacular sight for tourists. If you haven’t been there, you should consider making the trip. It is about twenty or thirty miles southwest of Lake Providence near the town of Epps. The area is called Poverty Point and there are arguments about the origin of the name. The general assumption
is that it came from a plantation owned by the Guier family. Some old-timers in the area say that, back before “The War for Southern Independence” there was a huge crop failure and the government sent a boatload of rations for the poverty-stricken people
. The slope down to the stream there was a logical docking point for the boat. So Poverty Point may have been the point where starving people were given food. No one knows, and I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
I have a problem with calling the builders “Poverty Point People” but archaeologists routinely call a site by the name of a nearby historical location, so this will always be called the Poverty Point site.
The location is excellent, for that time. The “city” itself is on a hill large enough to assure that it won’t be flooded, but it is located on the edge of a very large marshland that was probably connected to the Mississippi river through marsh canals. The slope down to the marsh was probably a docking area for boats that the people used for fishing, gathering edible plants, clams, and marsh animals that provided meat. There is no evidence that these people ever farmed. Why farm when there is plenty of other food around? To paraphrase “Ole Man River”: “They didn’t plant ‘taters, they didn’t plant cotton, and them that did were soon forgotten.” Of course the mound people were eventually forgotten but they lived a good life for about 600 years. We don’t know why this great metropolis died, but sometime around 1100 BC the people just left.
Now for more imponderables. The main part of Poverty Point consists of six concentric rings (almost circles but not quite) with four aisles running through them. In the center of these rings is a large plaza about thirty-five acres in size. A very large effigy mound overlooks the entire area. People still argue about what this effigy was, but it looks to me like a large eagle guarding the site. This was a very large “bird” in its time; it had a wingspan of about 640 feet, and measured around 710 feet from head to tail. The mound is about seventy feet high and has a flat space at the very top. Someone has calculated that this bird mound contained around 240,000 cubic meters of dirt, all carried in by hand, using baskets that would hold about fifty pounds each. A lot of people worked very hard to build that thing!
There is an interesting puzzle about the four aisles that led away from the
plaza. The center aisle obviously leads to the effigy mound, but those on each side of the central one point directly in the summer and winter solstice directions. My wife and I were there on June 22nd and watched the sun set directly down the center of the “summer” aisle. England’s Stonehenge has the same astronomical construction, but it was built in a farming area where the time of the year was more critical. The people of Poverty Point, like today’s wetlands Cajuns, lived by fishing and gathering edible plants from the large marsh. They also hunted deer and probably bear for the meat and the leather hides.
What were these rings used for? Who knows? Archaeologists have calculated that they were originally about six feet high and around twenty feet wide at the top. There is nothing haphazard about the circular rings. They were built with precise detail and exact dimensions. How long did it take to build such a structure and why did they build it? It must have taken several generations and people argue over why they were built.
Back in the early eighties my wife, Marie, was doing graduate work in archaeology and was asked to go on a “dig” at Poverty Point. Because she had an MS in plant anatomy, she was working in the air-conditioned lab, identifying charred plant fragments that were found. I went along as “Honey Do” and wound up digging, very slowly, in a pit on one of the circular rings. The weather was hot and the mosquitoes terrible, but I had fun. We found a lot of “people made” artifacts and got good lectures on others. The most abundant artifacts were some baked clay balls that had apparently been used for cooking meat and other foods. The system was to shape clay into specific shapes and bake them slowly so that they remained a solid as the clay in pots. Then the people made a kind of oven where the food was wrapped in different kinds of green leaves. After that, they built a large fire and heated the clay balls. Some of the “objects” I found still showed the finger prints of the person who had made them three thousand years ago! These very hot balls were put on the food in the “ovens” and the whole thing was covered with soil. After several hours the soil was removed and the food had been cooked by the hot balls—and possibly spiced by the kinds of green leaves used. One night we tried this system and found that it worked—pretty well. I would prefer meat cooked slowly in an electric oven.
There are several types of tools made from stone that came from the Ouachita mountains in Arkansas. The flint used to make tools (knives, spearheads, darts, or some other hunting tools) came from, among other places, a source of excellent flint material near St. Louis. Galena (ore that contains lead) was from the farther north upper Mississippi region; soapstone and greenstone from the Piedmont areas of east central Alabama and western Georgia; and the copper probably came from the Great Lakes region.
This is just a sample—the list goes on and on. It’s easy to see that most of this material came by boat down (or up) the Mississippi and then through marsh channels to Poverty Point, but I keep wondering just what those mound people traded for the objects. They had some talent for making ornamental objects such as beads, pendants, and human or animal effigies that were carved on site using the imported stone material, but this wasn’t a great artists colony. The best guess I have heard is that the mound people simply traveled a lot to get things they needed. Another thought is that people from other areas heard about this large, spectacular site and went there to visit.
This leads to the largest question in my mind. Why did so many people work so hard and for so long to build this great edifice? My guess is that this became a religious site that was regulated by a group of very strict leaders. I think Priests would be a better designation than Leaders. This is why I used the term “High Priest” for the introduction, but there is no evidence either way. That man must have been a gifted leader, speaker, and dreamer. He must have been leading a small group—something like an extended family. He chose an excellent site for a permanent settlement at a time when most tribal groups made temporary camps and moved on to better hunting areas. This was a high hill that would not flood and had a slope for access to the marsh that had a boundless supply of food. The leader began by having his people clear and level a thirty-five acre central “plaza” and then had them start building the first of the large circular ridges, using soil that was dug with deer shoulder bone shovels and carried by hand in baskets. Why did they build such mounds? The obvious answer is “because the High Priest told them to.” Did he really dream of this becoming such a large and sacred site, or did the idea develop gradually over several generations of leaders?
I have talked with several archaeologists who have worked the site and sociologists who simply wonder—as I have been doing—but these are my thoughts. First, I am convinced that Poverty Point was a religious site of great significance. Over the six hundred years it was ruled by a series of high priests, probably selected by an inner group who recognized that they needed men with excellent leadership abilities, including the ability to inspire people in great speeches. I realize that the rings must have been habitation sites but don’t understand why they were necessary. This was high ground that would not have flooded badly. The rings may have been used to provide an orderly arrangement of housing in the community. But, from what archaeologists have said, it seems that the permanent population may have been rather small. This would have been a group of people who maintained the site and re-filled areas that had eroded from rain and human traffic.
Now, why was the area so big, and who put in the millions of man-hours required to build those structures? Archaeologists still enjoy arguing over the purpose of this large place. Instead of listing the various ideas I want to present the Standifer Hypothesis. As I said earlier, this might not be the way it happened but I believe it is the way it might have happened.
I think that original High Priest dreamed of great things for the new site and persuaded his people to begin establishing it as a sacred meeting place for the various wandering bands. Each time he held a gathering of the bands he expected the visitors to help in building this sacred shrine. As news of this permanent shrine grew, more visitors came and worked to enlarge it even more. No one knows just how long this process lasted but it must have taken more than one generation. I assume that, instead of having the Priest pass the power to his eldest son, a committee of religious leaders selected the next High Priest; one who had the personality and leadership qualities needed to keep this large enterprise going. It lasted for around 600 years and was suddenly abandoned. It may be that the quality of leadership decreased, but my guess is that some disease eliminated the permanent residents and the visitors were afraid to return.
I understand why this shrine is called Poverty Point but the original builders were not poverty stricken. This was a great metropolis, a Holy City where people lived well and enjoyed the good life.
Details. Details. Details.
Poverty Point State Historic Site 6859 Highway 577 Pioneer, La. (318) 926-5492 povertypoint@crt.la.gov