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POVERTY POINT Earthworks

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Bianca
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« on: June 30, 2009, 04:37:41 pm »



Clay cooking balls found at the Poverty Point site









Some in the archeological community believe that the site at Poverty Point was mostly used as a ceremonial center where people congregated at various times of the year,  not as a city. Reasons that could have drawn individuals together during certain times of the year could be social or supernatural forces.  Marriages, trade, kin ties and alliances were also all important reasons for gathering.

 
Clay cooking balls found at the Poverty Point siteThe act of building and the presence of the mounds themselves created an enhanced “sense of community”.  There is evidence of “hearths, postmolds, and other features” found along the ridges, indicating the presence of people. Also found have been incredibly large volumes of clay balls used for the indirect heating of food, called "Poverty Point Objects,". Their presence would indicate a high volume of on-site food production, thereby indicating a year-round population. Artifacts that have been recovered in archeological excavations from Poverty Point typically are imported items. There appears to be a disproportional amount of this imported material at the site, consisting of projectile points and microliths, that has been determined to have originated in the Ouachita and Ozark Mountains and in the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys.

There is also evidence of soapstone from the Appalachians of Alabama and Georgia.  There are also copper and galena artifacts that indicate trade with the prehistoric copper producing region of the Great Lakes.  Foreign artifacts in such large amounts could indicate that they were gifts used for ritual and social purposes by the gathering people. These gifts were left behind periodically, and over the several generations of people using the site, slowly accumulated into the hundreds of intricate artifacts discovered during archeological excavations. Their presence also indicates that the people at Poverty Point were in contact with a wide range of other groups.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2009, 04:43:58 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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