The Extent and Content of Poverty Point Culture

Abstract

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.

Formal analyses and functional accounts of groundstone “plummets” from Poverty Point, Louisiana

“…The addition of a textile-production dimension in our understanding of Poverty Point might well explain what was being exchanged in the famous longdistance trade networks that brought exotic raw materials to northeastern Louisiana from hundreds to over a thousand miles away (Byrd, 1991;Gibson, 1994;Jackson, 1991;Webb, 1968Webb, , 1977.…”

“…At that point, additional plummets provided no new information to the measurement distribution at a 0.99% confidence level. Like the material composition reported by Webb (1968), our samples consisted of plummets composed of 85% hematite, 11% magnetite, and 4% other kinds of stone.…”

“…For the most part, speculation has driven discussion for well over 100 years (e.g., Ford and Webb, 1956;Goldstein, 2004;Henderson, 1872;Henshaw 1885;Moorehead, 1900;Peabody, 1901;Pennypacker, 1938;Webb, 1968;Yates, 1889Yates, , 1890. One the one hand, the morphology of a plummet generally matches what is commonly recognized as a plumb bob: "a weight with a pointed tip on the bottom that is suspended from a string and used as a reference line that is perpendicular to the ground."…”

Thermoluminescent Dating of Baked Clay Balls of the Poverty Point Culture

“…Intermittent contact with the Formative cultures of Mesoamerica is thought to have been the source of specific attributes of the Poverty Point culture and to have provided the spark that smouldered throughout subsequent North American cultural development. Monumental construction, solar orientation, community planning, hierarchal social organization, solid clay figurines, grit-tempered ceramics with podal supports, advanced techniques in lapidary work, and a lamellar microblade industry are recognized as constituting Poverty Point and are attributed to Mesoamerican contact , Webb 1968). To test this hypothesis, accurate dating of the beginnings of these traits in North America, and in Poverty Point sites, is imperative in any attempt to establish the temporal priority of receiver and donor cultures.…”

A Cultural Resources Survey of Castor River Item Number 2, Parcel 1, Channel Clearing and Cleanout Stoddard County, Missouri.

“…The lithic technologies appear to run without interruption through these periods, with ceramics added at about the beginning of the present era. Major excavations of these components have taken place at Poverty Point and Jaketown in Louisiana and Mississippi (Ford, Phillips and Haag 1955;Webb 1968). A fairly large number of Late Archaic sites are known in eastern Arkansas and Missouri (Chapman 1975:177-179,224;Morse and Morse 1983:114-135).…”