The complex construction history of Poverty Point’s timber circles and concentric ridges

Hargrave, Michael L.; Clay, R. Berle; Dalan, Rinita A.; Greenlee, Diana M.

doi:10.1080/0734578x.2021.1961350

Cited by 10 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The association between posts and earthworks is a potentially more significant point of architectural variation between the two sites. The large posts erected during or after the construction of Mounds A and X are similar to those observed in the plaza of Poverty Point, but there is no evidence of posts being placed in earthworks at a similar scale at Poverty Point (Hargrave et al 2021;Kidder et al 2021;Ortmann and Kidder 2013). This suggests shared (although not identical) architectural practices in terms of form and ultimate function.…”

Section: Architecturementioning

confidence: 82%

“…The use of posts at both sites may be temporally differentiated, although we cannot say this conclusively. The post circles at Poverty Point were in use during early and peak phases of earthwork construction at Poverty Point (Hargrave et al 2021). The posts at Jaketown are in diverse contexts that span at least the period of earthwork construction.…”

Section: Defining Poverty Point: the View From Jaketownmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The View from Jaketown: Considering Variation in the Poverty Point Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley

et al. 2022

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Recent research at Jaketown, a Late Archaic earthwork site in the Lower Mississippi Valley, suggests that the culture-historical framework used to interpret Jaketown and contemporary sites in the region obscures differences in practices across sites. As an alternative, we propose a framework focused on variation in material culture, architecture, and foodways between Jaketown and Poverty Point, the regional type site. Our analysis indicates that people used Poverty Point Objects and imported lithics at Jaketown by 4525–4100 cal BP—earlier than elsewhere in the region. By 3450–3350 cal BP, people intensively occupied Jaketown, harvesting a consistent suite of wild plants. Between 3445 and 3270 cal BP, prior to the apex of earthwork construction at Poverty Point, the community at Jaketown built at least two earthworks and multiple post structures before catastrophic flooding sometime after 3300 cal BP buried the Late Archaic landscape under alluvium. These new data lead us to conclude that the archaeological record of the Late Archaic Lower Mississippi Valley does not reflect a uniform regional culture. Rather, relationships between Jaketown and Poverty Point indicate a multipolar history in which communities selectively participated in larger social phenomena—such as exchange networks and architectural traditions—while maintaining diverse, localized practices.

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Section: Architecturementioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Defining Poverty Point: the View From Jaketownmentioning

confidence: 99%

The View from Jaketown: Considering Variation in the Poverty Point Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley

et al. 2022

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“…Therefore, we must be careful regarding our interpretation of patterns of post molds without obvious internal supports, given that some of these structures lacking clear evidence for internal posts could indeed be roofed and not have been simply blinds and screens, as archaeologists sometimes logically interpret such patterns. The recent large circular post patterns at Poverty Point in Louisiana come to mind (Hargrave et al 2021), and although the very largest of these may not be such a structure, some smaller ones deserve careful consideration as potential council houses as one hypothesis. If this were found to be the case, then it would push this architectural form back thousands of years, which may not be all that surprising given the time depth of mound building in the region.…”

Section: Considering Council Houses and Native American Political Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

The Early Materialization of Democratic Institutions among the Ancestral Muskogean of the American Southeast

Thompson¹,

Holland‐Lulewicz²,

Butler³

et al. 2022

Am. Antiq.

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Democratic cooperation is a particularly complex type of arrangement that requires attendant institutions to ensure that the problems inherent in collective action do not subvert the public good. It is perhaps due to this complexity that historians, political scientists, and others generally associate the birth of democracy with the emergence of so-called states and center it geographically in the “West,” where it then diffused to the rest of the world. We argue that the archaeological record of the American Southeast provides a case to examine the emergence of democratic institutions and to highlight the distinctive ways in which such long-lived institutions were—and continue to be—expressed by Native Americans. Our research at the Cold Springs site in northern Georgia, USA, provides important insight into the earliest documented council houses in the American Southeast. We present new radiocarbon dating of these structures along with dates for the associated early platform mounds that place their use as early as cal AD 500. This new dating makes the institution of the Muskogean council, whose active participants have always included both men and women, at least 1,500 years old, and therefore one of the most enduring and inclusive democratic institutions in world history.

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“…Thousands of artifacts excavated and surfaces collected over the past 70 years are curated at Poverty Point by the Louisiana Division of Archaeology (Ervin, 2017, p. 2; Hargrave et al, 2021). One of the most abundant artifact classes at Poverty Point is the chipped stone debitage from biface production.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Partly because of the raw material abundance and diversity, the function of the Poverty Point site is ambiguous and has been subject to debate over the last century (Carr & Stewart, 2004;Gibson, 2000;Jackson, 1991;Jeter & Jackson, 1994;Kidder & Sassaman, 2009;Spivey, 2011). of Archaeology (Ervin, 2017, p. 2;Hargrave et al, 2021). One of the most abundant artifact classes at Poverty Point is the chipped stone debitage from biface production.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing raw material diversity at Poverty Point (16WC5) using non‐destructive reflectance spectroscopy

et al. 2022

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Lithic raw material variation is valuable for assessing the scale of human mobility, differential access to and from raw material sources, and prehistoric exchange patterns. Recent advancements in non‐destructive reflectance spectroscopy have proven to be more accurate in provenance investigations compared with the macroscopic (visual) identification technique for lithic artifacts. Here, we use visible/near‐infrared reflectance and Fourier transform reflectance spectroscopy on a collection of 845 lithic bifaces at Poverty Point (16WC5) site in northeastern Louisiana, a UNESCO World Heritage site that is well‐known for the presence of nonlocal materials, including stone tools. This study describes the first systematic approach to analyzing and interpreting hyperspectral reflectance data for cryptocrystalline silicate (e.g., chert and flint) artifacts at Poverty Point site. The chert materials identified in this study reaffirm the idea that tool stones arriving at the Poverty Point site came from diverse geologic sources, covering an expansive geographic area.

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The complex construction history of Poverty Point’s timber circles and concentric ridges

Cited by 10 publications

References 29 publications

The View from Jaketown: Considering Variation in the Poverty Point Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley

The View from Jaketown: Considering Variation in the Poverty Point Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley

The Early Materialization of Democratic Institutions among the Ancestral Muskogean of the American Southeast

Assessing raw material diversity at Poverty Point (16WC5) using non‐destructive reflectance spectroscopy

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