"Basaic Poverty Point Page" Poverty Point State Park by Basaic

I have always been fascinated by history, especially things like the pre-historic peoples occupying the area now known as North America. This is one of the more interesting sites concerning these pre-historic settlers.

Poverty Point State Historic Site, which is also a National Monument, commemorates the people who lived here in the first and second milennia BC. Eight centuries after Egyptian slaves dragged huge stones across the desert to build the Great Pyramids, and before the great Mayan pyramids were constructed, they built one of the largest complexes of earthenwork mounds,and left behind one of the most important archaeological sites in North America. They were pre-agricultural which makes this undertaking even more impressive. The central construction consists of six rows of concentric ridges, which at one time were five feet high. The five aisles and six sections of ridges form a partial octagon. The diameter of the outermost ridges measures three-quarters of a mile. It is thought that these ridges served as foundations for dwellings although little evidence of structures has been found. Some of the features found and trash and debris found here support this theory. This society also imported items from as far away as the Ouachita and Ozark Mountains, the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys, and the Appalachian foothills of northern Alabama and Georgia.

Museum

Inside the Visitors Center is a nice museum that shows some of the artifacts discovered during the excavation of the area by archeologists, the methods they use for studying the area and its past, and how the people inhabiting Poverty Point fit into a historical timeline starting with Ancient Egypt.

Prehistoric Mound

In addition to the rows constructed for housing there are other mounds at the site. One of the most interesting, and largest, was constructed in the shape of a large bird in flight.