New Thoughts on Louisiana’s Poverty Point

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI—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."