Late Archaic developments along the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi Valley, after 2000 B.C., contributed a substantial base for the Poverty Point culture. New coastal and inland discoveries bring the total number of Poverty Point sites to 34, with many additional possibilities.A study of 70,000 artifacts from the type-site is reported; the known cultural content is increased by numerous new traits. The thesis is advanced that Formative elements of Mesoamerican origin, including ceremonial organization, massive mound construction, village planning, ceramics, figurines, advanced lapidary industry, and probable agriculture, enriched the basic Archaic culture and contributed to subsequent cultural developments in the valley.

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Holmes states that steatite was widely used by the Indian tribes north of Mexico for the manufacture of implements, ornaments and utensils. The manufacture of stone vessels predominated on the Pacific coast, especially in the Santa Barbara region where sites have stone vessel fragments in all strata, and along the Atlantic coast, where this trait was especially associated with the Old Algonkian culture of the North Atlantic. The use of stone vessels in the areas in which pottery was used, both in the Mississippi Valley and the Southeast, although much less common, is indicated by occasional references to vessels or fragments on various sites and by the presence of quarries such as those described by Jones3 in the Tallapoosa River region of Alabama. The comparative infrequency of these artifacts on sites in the lower Mississippi Valley inspired the preparation of this report of a large cache of fragments of stone vessels found on a site in West Carroll Parish in northeastern Louisiana.

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