Aerial view of Poverty Point, LouisianaWikimedia Commons [0:00] |
Posted on 11/24/2025 10:22:15 PM PST by SunkenCiv
It had been previously thought that the Poverty Point earthworks in northeastern Louisiana were inhabited some 3,500 years ago by a complex, hierarchical society ruled as a chiefdom, but traces of long-term dwellings and burials have not been uncovered at the site. According to a statement released by Washington University in St. Louis, archaeologists T.R. Kidder, Olivia Baumgartel, and Seth Grooms suggest that Poverty Point was used as a meeting place by egalitarian hunter-gatherers who lived all over the Southeast and the Midwest. “When these earthworks were being constructed, the Southeast was prone to severe weather and massive floods,” Kidder said. “We believe the inhabitants of Poverty Point built the mounds, performed rituals, and left behind valuable objects as a sacrifice and spiritual offering,” he explained. For more on Poverty Point, go to "Archaic Engineers Worked on a Deadline."
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
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Aerial view of Poverty Point, LouisianaWikimedia Commons [0:00] |
They built them for safety. (Not “Flood Control” or “the king’stent” nor “a place to worship their gods “.)
As recently as the 1927 Mississippi River floods, EVERYBODY across the delta flatlands gathered on the Indian mounds to wait out the rising water for the days it took to for the water to go down.
Yes. The mounds were to build. Took effort.
But. They had no warnings from upstream. No warnings of floods of any kind. Once the water began rising, the Indians could only evacuate to higher ground. And higher ground was 4 days travel away.
Build a mound using mud, dirt. And slaves.
Next year, next flood five years later?
Your tribe is the only one surviving.
You get all of their land.
Build a mound too low? You tribe dies. You die.
And that technique works in any flat valley, not only the hundreds of miles of the lower Mississippi.
There are a lot of mounds of various sizes and elevation at Poverty Point.
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