Thursday, April 7, 2011
Poverty Point: Louisiana’s hill country
Posted by Wendy Rodrigue on Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 1:36 PM
In New Orleans we preserve our nineteenth century French Quarter architecture out of fear that we might lose or damage something old and precious from our culture. We defend the importance of these relatively new buildings within our relatively new country against the importance of the Medieval and Renaissance structures of Europe.
And yet, we have no reason to be defensive. Discussions of context and recent history aside, the state of Louisiana holds complex man-made structures and archeological finds dating back more than 5,000 years.
While exploring ancient Indian mounds in northeast Louisiana this week, with the sun in my eyes and the warm wind blowing hair in my face, I accidentally turned to an old page in my notebook where I wrote,
Each ridge 4-6 ft high when built, 50 ft across top, 100 ft in between. Imagine without trees but with huts.
- Jon L. Gibson
- Poverty Point
I didn’t notice the mistake until hunting down the information for this post. On the same page appear the words, “abstractions of American Modernism,” referring to artist George O’Keeffe, the focus of an essay last December, and yet oddly fitting regarding these patterned, evenly spaced ridges and oddly shaped, unexplainable man-made hills, the largest reaching seven hundred feet across and seventy-two feet in the air.
- Jon L. Gibson
- Mound A, also called the Bird Mound, 1300 B.C.
Our guide explained the phenomena in detail, predicating her information with phrases like, “We think that…,” “Archeologists surmise…,” and “We don’t know for sure, but…”
“Poverty Point archaeology,” writes anthropologist Jon L. Gibson, “consists of a few facts, lots of interpretations, and much that is not known.”
Indeed the site, named for a nineteenth century nearby farm and spreading one hundred miles on Bayou Marcon in the Mississippi River delta, stands out in a state so flat that in the 1930s the New Orleans Audubon Zoo piled up layers of dirt to “show the children of New Orleans what a hill looks like.” (from the zoo’s website, describing ‘Monkey Hill.’)
- Jon L. Gibson
- Poverty Point, aerial view
It’s easy on a beautiful spring day to understand (to guess) why the Native Americans chose this site as their home for seven hundred years. Although the modern world, such as it is in rural, mid-state Louisiana, drove out or killed off the abundance of animals over the years, this is indeed God’s country, with wildflowers, lush grass, flowing water, shade, sun, and breeze.
“These Indians had it made,” commented my husband, recalling our camping trip in the Grand Canyon. “Think of the Anasazi, living within caves hundreds of feet above the ground and trapped each winter by the snow.”
- George Rodrigue
- oil on canvas (detail), 1988
“Use your imagination,” urged our guide. And so we did, picturing pyramid-like structures made of earth rather than stone, the stage for ceremonies and a focal point for the people living in semi-circles around the base of the largest mass.
My imagination traveled further and my astonishment peaked as we grasped that the oldest mound in this area of Louisiana dates to 3900 B.C. This is 1500 years before the Egyptians built the pyramids at Giza!
By some miracle of estimation, archaeologists claim that 23,000 people lived at Poverty Point in 1300 B.C. during the height of its culture, the same period that King Tutankhamun ruled Egypt. They spent their time hunting for food, weaving baskets, and hauling dirt for these mounds, some requiring the equivalent of 16,000 dump truck loads, or 10-12 million filled baskets.
The unnamed American Indian tribe lived on top of the concentric ridges, affording drainage and order for their thatched huts. The Bayou Marcon at that time was a lake, and the Mississippi River flowed only three miles away.
Rich with artifacts, the site holds hundreds of arrowheads, pottery shards, tools, extensive evidence of baskets, and even jewelry, as well as rocks carved with figures and designs, usually animals such as birds and foxes. Because the area has no stone, the people probably traded with their contemporaries in the West, providing baskets in exchange.
- George Rodrigue
- oil on canvas, 1984
Oddly enough, unlike the tombs within the Egyptian pyramids, the mounds at Poverty Point reveal no ancient human remains, indicating that the residents disposed of their dead by cremation. It is believed that the larger mounds were built for ceremonial use.
- George Rodrigue
- oil on canvas, 1984
The experts claim that this organized and rooted society was highly unusual for the hunter-gatherers (a term I had not heard since grade school). They built these mounds, these temples, with determination and skill, packing the dirt in layers so that even today, 3500 years of erosion later, we’re left with their legacy, an anomaly, Louisiana’s Hill Country.
- George Rodrigue
- oil on canvas, 1984
Eventually these original Americans adopted us, fighting for a 'new' country, the very place they called home, revered as sacred, and built structures for thousands of years. They created a legacy not only worth studying and preserving, but also worth visiting. On our day-trip to the area between Rayville and Tallulah in the vicinity of Vidalia, home of the sweet onions, we gained a new appreciation for America’s history and Louisiana’s important role in protecting and revering our ancient world.
Wendy Rodrigue (a.k.a. Dolores Pepper)
References:
-The Ancient Mounds of Poverty Point: Place of Rings by Jon L. Gibson, University Press of Florida, 2001
-The official Poverty Point website, maintained by the U.S. National Park Service
For a related post see “America the Beautiful,” our journey through the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Indian Reservation from “Musings of an Artist’s Wife”
Comments (10)
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Oh that's right! I was thinking of Georgia peaches (not that that's connected either). I'll leave my mistake posted and your correction as well. The dose of humility is good for me, to say the least, and it reminds me that I can't possibly edit enough!
Thank you for reading-
Enjoyed this ancient history lesson of the Louisiana hill country! Funny about the onions... While they will grow just about anywhere in the south, they're only called "Vidalia" onions if they are in fact from Vidalia, GA. If the same onion is grown anywhere else, it's just a lowly sweet onion.
My mother, born 1918, lived in this area as a child. She and Grandpa hunted squirrels on the mounds. Grandpa would take her with him to be his "squirrel turner". That meant when the squirrel ran around the tree, Mama went around that side to make him go back so Grandpa could see him.
Are you sure about the spelling of the Bayou? Mama always stressed it was Bayou Macon, pronounced Mayson.
Hi Ginny, Your comments are a great addition to the post! "Squirrel turner" -- now that's a phrase worth remembering. Thank you so much for reading and especially for sharing your mother's story.
Regarding the bayou, I pulled that spelling from a map in the Gibson book, referenced at the bottom of the post. However, after your comment, I looked on line, and the contemporary maps all spell the name as you do: 'Bayou Macon.' My guess is that either the name changed at some point, or the book includes a type-o. Either way, thank you for the correction-
Wendy, thanks for the article.
as an archaeologist, I'd like to mention that it's very important to our field that the public is aware of such great places. we want to encourage the maintenance of these ancient sites so that they may continue to exist.
one of the theories for the absence of burials at Poverty Point is that the site wasn't constantly used throughout the year. rather, it was a of a sort of convention center where people would gather from nearby areas.
thanks again!
Thank you, Possum. Very interesting about the burials. I had not heard that on the tour, but it certainly makes sense.
My husband and I spent two hours alone at the site, despite the fact that it was after school on a beautiful spring day. Indeed, people should be 'aware of such great places.'
"People of the Owl" is a great historical fiction book about Poverty Point. Makes me want to be on the big mound at sunrise.
I am from the Monroe-West Monroe area and it is indeed Bayou Macon. The state and region does not do a good job of telling about this site. It is on the list of nominees for a listing as a World Heritage Site.
