Figure 11. Stone Ornaments. a, g, Pendants; b, Hour-Glass Bead; d-f, k, Tubular Beads; c, i-j, Fat Owl Effigy Pendants; h, Clam Shell Effigy; l-m, Buttons; n, Claw Effigy. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.
Figure 11. Stone Ornaments. a, g, Pendants; b, Hour-Glass Bead; d-f, k, Tubular Beads; c, i-j, Fat Owl Effigy Pendants; h, Clam Shell Effigy; l-m, Buttons; n, Claw Effigy. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.
It would hardly be apt to describe the folks at Poverty Point as gaudily dressed, but by comparison with their country neighbors living in little villages and with their trade partners in Arkansas, Mississippi, and other sections of Louisiana, they must have been quite “fancy” and impressively clothed. Because so much personal ornamentation occurs at Poverty Point itself, it is conceivable that social distinctions there were more numerous and more rigid than anywhere else at the time. There was only one Poverty Point. It must have seemed like New Orleans on Mardi Gras, Mecca during the pilgrimage, and Mexico City on market day—all rolled into one.
Hundreds of solid stone objects, such as cones, cylinders, spheres, cubes, trapezoids, buttons (Figure 11), and others, were also made by skilled craftsmen, mainly at the giant Poverty Point site (Webb 1977:48). Since utilitarian functions for these small objects are difficult to imagine, they too must have had ornamental, symbolic, or, perhaps, even religious meanings.
Religious and other symbolic purposes might have been served by stone pipes. Most were shaped like ice-cream cones or fat cigars. Other smoking tubes, made of baked clay, may have been the “poor man’s” versions of sacred pipes in regional communities outside the sphere of direct Poverty Point control. At the Poverty Point site, tubular clay pipes may have served more ordinary, nonreligious purposes. The presence of pipes, however, suggests that they might have been the first calumets used by Southeastern Indians; calumets being the most sacred symbols of intertribal relations, used to proclaim war and peace and to honor and salute important ceremonies and visiting dignitaries.
Other sacred objects may have included the small, crudely molded, clay figurines depicting seated women, many of whom appear to be pregnant (Figure 12). Heads were nearly always missing, although whether or not they were snapped off deliberately during ceremonies is purely conjectural. Perhaps, smaller, decorated versions of clay cooking objects may have had religious or social symbolic value as well.
It is also suspected that regular everyday artifacts could be turned into sacred ones under certain circumstances. This probably explains the 200 to 300 steatite vessels that were broken and buried in an oval pit a little southwest of the biggest mound at the Poverty Point site (Webb 1944). They must have been an offering of some kind. Other deposits of steatite vessels, both whole and broken, were found at the Claiborne site on the Gulf Coast (Gaglianoand Webb 1970; Bruseth 1980). Religious and social meaning can be ascribed to virtually anything, and there need not be any recognizable intrinsic value or unusualness. No doubt thousands of other artifacts functioned in this nondomestic realm of behavior, and we just do not know what they are.
Figure 12. Female Figurines of Baked Clay. a-b, d, Torsos; c, Head. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.
Figure 12. Female Figurines of Baked Clay. a-b, d, Torsos; c, Head. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.
Religion is one of the most powerful motive forces in culture. So it was in Poverty Point culture. It provided sanctions, direction, meaning, and explanation of great mysteries. It was central to group organization and leadership. It was the single most important source of power and was probably the underlying motivation for communal building projects and other group activities.
But unlike the other early great religions of the New World—Chavin in South America and Olmec in Lowland Mexico—Poverty Point religion seems to have lacked a special religious artwork. There are a few symbolic artifacts, such as fat-bellied owl pendants and locust effigies that have a widespread distribution (Webb 1971), but these objects often occur in earlier contexts and in contemporary, non-Poverty Point cultural situations. The lack of a widespread religious art style argues against the possibility of a universal state religion and implies that local populations had independent systems of worship.
The mounds and the specialized objects that functioned in ceremonial realms were probably all involved in some way with religion and ritual. Yet the nature of Poverty Point religion and worship remains unknown. Ancestor worship has been mentioned as one possibility. Amulets and charms, ifcorrectly identified, imply beliefs in spirit forces or perhaps nature spirits. Bird representations in stone and earth suggest that birds may have been deified. Bird symbolism was an integral part of Southeastern religions during the Christian Era, and possibly its beginnings were in Poverty Point beliefs.
There is little information on Poverty Point burial practices. This is primarily due to the fact that there have been so few excavations, and those have been largely confined to residential areas in villages.
Mound B at Poverty Point covered an ash bed which contained fragments of burned bone (Ford and Webb 1956:35). Most were tiny and unidentifiable, but one was the upper end of a burned human femur, proving that at least one person had been cremated and covered by the earthen tomb.
Further evidence of cremation, as well as in-flesh burial, derives from the Cowpen Slough site near Larto Lake in central Louisiana. Although conceivably later, the burials were completely enveloped by Poverty Point occupational deposits which seemed to be undisturbed. Since the burial area was not completely excavated, many question marks still remain. However, we know that adults and at least one juvenile were buried. Some were in tightly bent positions, but the positions of others were not determined (Baker and Webb 1978; Giardino 1981). One small pit in the burial area contained fragments of an unburned adult in the bottom and an undisturbed cremation of a juvenile near the top (Giardino 1981). All of the excavated interments were close together, and the presence of surrounding postmolds (Baker and Webb 1978) may indicate burial beneath a house floor or some other structure. Except for a set of deer antlers, placed at the pelvis of one of the individuals, there were no apparent burial offerings; nearby artifacts seemed to be just household trash.
The only other known human remains that apparently date to the Poverty Point period were some teeth and a lower jaw dredged from the bottom mucks of Bayou Macon, the small stream that lies at the foot of the bluff beneath the Poverty Point site. These were not burials, however, but ornaments! The molars were perforated at crown bases, and the jaw section may have been cut into shape. These objects were probably more than just decorations; they may have served as amulets, magical charms, battle trophies, or religious objects symbolizing revered ancestors.
Society and government are the most difficult dimensions of prehistoric cultures for archaeologists to reconstruct. This is because they do not leave material remains and must be inferred indirectly. Yet social and political institutions are basic to every culture. They are primary factors that distinguish one group of people from another.
Attempts to determine social and political organization have been mainly limited to the Poverty Point site. It is hard, especially in light of accomplishments at the magnificent town of Poverty Point, to think of Poverty Point society as anything other than an advanced culture, perhaps attaining, if only momentarily, the threshold of civilization itself.
Political organization seems to have been as sophisticated. Just to run a town the size of Poverty Point—the largest in the country in 1000 B.C.—must have required administration far more complicated than that normally found in primitive bands or simple tribes. In addition to its giant size, there was an ambitious civic building program that required administering, as well as commercial trade enterprises that had to be overseen. All this pointed to strong, centralized authority and strict regulation.
Chiefdoms had these capabilities, and if the Poverty Point community comprised a chiefdom, it would be the first appearance of this elaborate socio-political institution in the prehistoric United States (Gibson 1974). The political arm of Poverty Point seems to have reached beyond the major municipal district. It no doubt embraced those nearby neighborhoods which stretched for more than three miles above and below the central enclosure. It probably extended farther to those bluff edge and lowland Villages within a 20 to 30 mile radius of the “capital.” If this 400-square-mile territory does represent the sphere of Poverty Point jurisdiction, it is likely that influence on the outer limits was restricted to special situations. Everyday life in these outlying villages must have normally transpired without influence or interference from the chiefdom center. There may have been yet another jurisdictional realm. Long-distance management, if not some degree of control, seems evident in foreign trade relations.
If indeed Poverty Point did exercise three levels of administration, over municipality, district, and commercial trade, it would have been one of the most complex developments in prehistoric America north of Mexico. This country would not see its like again until after A.D. 1000 and, even then,only in a few places in the East. There are dissenting views on the chiefdom hypothesis, and it will not be surprising if future studies find that different kinds of societies and distinctive structures, existed throughout the Lower Mississippi culture area.
Regardless of whether Poverty Point communities were chiefdoms or tribes or whether organization was complex or simple, there is no doubt that kinship played a dominant role in holding people together. Communities were most basically groups of kinfolks, joined by blood and marriage ties. Social relationships were based on familiarity. Social statuses were established by personal abilities and by birthright. The simpler the organization, the more important was personal ability and achievement; the more complex the society, the more important became birthright—family standing and inheritance.
Various studies have revealed that the Poverty Point community was well-ordered and highly structured. Part of that order and structure was due to social and political factors which permeated the basic fabric of Poverty Point society. Perhaps the best example of Poverty Point political organization is its well-run trading system.
Long-distance trade was a hallmark of Poverty Point culture. Like most other aspects of the culture, there is no consensus about the nature of the trade. Archaeologists argue about identifications and sources of trade materials, especially various flints, but no one questions that many materials were moved over long distances. Some materials originated more than 700 miles from the Poverty Point site, and extreme distances of more than 1000 miles sometimes separate sources from final destinations. Trade materials were quite varied and derived from many areas of the eastern United States, including the Ouachita, Ozark, and Appalachian mountains and the Upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes (Figure 13).
Poverty Point trade dealt primarily in rocks and minerals. At least so it seems. If other things were also circulated, they left no remains. Rocks do make good sense, however. Indians of the day made most of their tools out of rocks; they had no metal-working technology. Rocks do occur in the heartland of Poverty Point culture but mainly as gravels or as outcrops of crumbly sandstones, ironstones, and other soft materials, ill-suited for chipping. While local resources could have furnished (and did furnish for many Lower Mississippi cultures and many periods) all the essential materials for craft and tool “industries,” most of the materials imported by Poverty Point groups were better and prettier. They were obviously highly desired, and the quantities in which they were circulated shows that consumer demand was high and supply systems efficient.
Figure 13. Areas of Poverty Point Trade Materials.
Figure 13. Areas of Poverty Point Trade Materials.
The main question about Poverty Point trade concerns how materials were moved from one place to another. When this question first arose, one suggestion was that gathering expeditions were sent out from the big Poverty Point site itself (Ford and Webb 1956:125-126). Later, other means were proposed, means ranging from the activities of wandering merchants to ceremonial exchange systems connected with widespread festivals or religious proselytizing.
It seems that several Poverty Point villages, located north of the Poverty Point site, produced evidence that they were more directly involved with importation and exportation of certain rocks than was Poverty Point (Brasher 1973). In other words, these villages—Jaketown in Mississippi, Deep Bayou in southeastern Arkansas, and others—seemed to have been important trade outposts, where exotic materials, moving southward from northern source areas, were amassed and then locally distributed. The remainder, perhaps the surplus or a quota, was then sent on to the primary trade “market,” the huge town at Poverty Point. There, a major share of imported materials was consumed by folks living in the “city limits” and by their neighbors in little surrounding hamlets.
From Poverty Point, significant quantities of exotic raw materials were shipped further southward all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. At least some southbound exports were prefabricated before shipment. South Louisiana “markets” received a variety of raw materials but not a full array.
Several considerations are crucial to understanding Poverty Point trade. First, materials from outside the region, as well as local materials, were traded. Second, Poverty Point territories, though scattered and widely separated, lay on or near an interconnected system of waterways ultimately tied to the Mississippi River. This certainly supports the belief of the importance of waterborne transport, especially in view of the bulk of some imported materials. Third, geographic location looms as a major factor in import-export operations. There can be no question of the importance of the principal town of Poverty Point in the entire trade network. This major settlement did not fall at the geographic center of the exchange area but near the common junction of the major rivers that served as traderoutes. Along these rivers between Poverty Point and sources of exotic materials were the trade outposts.
There are several equally plausible ways of looking at Poverty Point trade based on our presently limited knowledge. There are additionally many things we will probably never be able to find out, such as the motivation for trade and the circumstances under which it transpired among participating communities. For example, were trade relationships based on common political alliances or allegiances? Were religious ties paramount? Were purely capitalistic motives involved? Although we do not understand why it occurred, we are beginning to understand its mechanics a little better. The following is offered as one plausible reconstruction ofhowPoverty Point trade might have operated.
The capital of Poverty Point trade was the giant town of Poverty Point. It was the hub—the one place where all trade lines converged. It was the place where raw material and commodity shipments were destined. Other villages, located on rivers which joined Poverty Point with source areas of exotic materials, became important as trade outposts—gateway communities more directly involved with primary acquisition and initial relay of materials. It is probable that these outposts, like Jaketown and Deep Bayou, maintained rather exclusive connections with the peoples who were directly responsible for quarrying or collecting trade materials or through whom such materials had to first circulate. After amassing stocks of raw materials and extracting that portion essential for local use, these trade outposts then shipped the bulk of the commodities on to Poverty Point.
Some materials acquired by these gateway outposts never seem to have been passed on to the ultimate marketplace and others were sent on in small quantities compared with amounts actually obtained. It seems that each outpost had its own preferences for materials and that those supplies were used first to satisfy local needs before being exported. Yet some raw materials appear to have passed through these outposts without major local withdrawals. Perhaps Poverty Point was able to exercise monopolies on certain materials, though the ultimate source of power or persuasion used to insure them is unknown.
Once materials arrived at Poverty Point, several things seem to have happened. The lion’s share appears to have been consumed locally, mainly at the Poverty Point site itself but also within its immediately surrounding communities. The remaining portion seems to have been earmarked formovement on down river. Some southbound materials were passed on in rough, or unmodified condition, but some were trimmed and partially shaped. Some finished goods or artifacts also were distributed to southern consumers. What might have been given in exchange by these folks who lived in “rockless” areas of south Louisiana and south Mississippi is unknown but perishable goods are often mentioned in this connection. Limited trade in finished goods westward across southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana has also been documented.
It should be reemphasized that this reconstruction of Poverty Point trade is speculative. It is based on current data and current appreciation of prehistoric trade relationships. Yet there are many things we do not understand about Poverty Point trade, and the final word on this subject has not yet been spoken.
The preceding view of Poverty Point culture has been written much like an ethnographer might have described it if he had been able to go back some 3000 years in the past. Unfortunately, time travel and direct observation of extinct cultures are beyond our capabilities, and that is why much of the Poverty Point story must be written with such words as: seems, appears, perhaps, maybe, and other equivocal terms. The Poverty Point story is a patchwork of facts, hypotheses, guesses, and speculations. Often there are many different ways to look at the same set of data. This is why there are so many alternative interpretations and differences of opinion among archaeologists who study this fascinating culture. This should not be mistaken for a bad state of affairs. It is good and healthy. It is a sign to all that much remains to be done before we can present a detailed picture in which everyone can be confident.
But more than agreement or disagreement is the responsibility thrust upon everyone—archaeologist and public alike—who thirst for understanding of humankind. Poverty Point represents a charge and a commitment. The proud people who were carriers of Poverty Point culture are all dead. But the things they created, their magnificent achievements, their contributions to the saga of human development on this planet live on. Theirs is a legacy worth understanding.
Baker, William S., Jr. and Clarence H. Webb
1978 Burials at the Cowpen Slough site (16CT147).Louisiana Archaeological Society, Newsletter5(2):16-18.
Brasher, Ted. J.
1973An investigation of some central functions of Poverty Point.Unpublished M.A. thesis, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches.
Bruseth, James E.
1980 Intrasite structure at the Claiborne site. In Caddoan and Poverty Point archaeology: essays in honor of Clarence Hungerford Webb, edited by Jon L. Gibson.Louisiana Archaeology6 for 1979:283-318.
Byrd, Kathleen M.
1978 Zooarchaeological remains. In The peripheries of Poverty Point, by Prentice M. Thomas, Jr. and L. Janice Campbell.New World Research Report of Investigations12:238-244.
Byrd, Kathleen M. and Robert W. Neuman
1978 Archaeological data relative to prehistoric subsistence in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, edited by Sam B. Hilliard.Geoscience and Man19:9-21.
Duhe, Brian
1976 Preliminary evidence of a seasonal fishing activity at Bayou Jasmine.Louisiana Archaeology3:33-74.
Ford, James A.
1955 The puzzle of Poverty Point.Natural History64(9):466-472.
Ford, James A.
1969 A comparison of Formative cultures in the Americas, diffusion of the psychic unity of man.Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology11.
Ford, James A., Philip Phillips, and William G. Haag
1955 The Jaketown site in West-Central Mississippi.American Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Papers45(1).
Ford, James A. and Clarence H. Webb
1956 Poverty Point, a Late Archaic site in Louisiana.American Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Papers46(1).
Gagliano, Sherwood M. and Clarence H. Webb
1970 Archaic-Poverty Point transition at the Pearl River mouth. In The Poverty Point Culture, edited by Bettye J. Broyles and Clarence H. Webb.Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Bulletin12:47-72.
Giardino, Marco
1981 (Untitled). Unpublished MS, on file with author, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Gibson, Jon L.
1973Social systems at Poverty Point, an analysis of intersite and intrasite variability.Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Methodist University. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.
1974 Poverty Point, the first North American chiefdom.Archaeology27(2):96-105.
1975 Fire pits at Mount Bayou (16CT35), Catahoula Parish, Louisiana.Louisiana Archaeology2:201-218.
Haag, William G. and Clarence H. Webb
1953 Microblades at Poverty Point sites.American Antiquity18(3):245-248.
Hunter, Donald G.
1975 Functional analysis of Poverty Point clay objects.Florida Anthropologist28(1):57-71.
Jackson, H. Edwin
1981 Recent research on Poverty Point period subsistence and settlement systems: test excavations at the J. W. Copes site in northeast Louisiana.Louisiana Archaeology8:73-86.
Kuttruff, Carl
1975 The Poverty Point site: north sector test excavation.Louisiana Archaeology2:129-151.
Shea, Andrea B.
1978 Botanical remains. In The peripheries of Poverty Point, by Prentice M. Thomas, Jr. and L. Janice Campbell.New World Research Report of Investigations12:245-260.
Smith, Brent W.
1974 A preliminary identification of faunal remains from the Claiborne site.Mississippi Archaeology9(5):1-14.
Webb, Clarence H.
1944 Stone vessels from a northeast Louisiana site.American Antiquity9(4):386-394.
1971 Archaic and Poverty Point zoomorphic locust beads.American Antiquity36(1):105-114.
1977 The Poverty Point culture.Geoscience and Man17.
Woodiel, Deborah K.
1981 Survey and excavation at the Poverty Point site, 1978.Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Bulletin24:9-11.
Anthropological Study Series
No. 1 On the Tunica Trail by Jeffrey P. BrainNo. 2 The Caddo Indians of Louisiana by Clarence H. Webb & Hiram F. GregoryNo. 3 The Role of Salt in Eastern North American Peoples by Ian BrownNo. 4 El Nuevo Constante by Charles E. Pearson, et al.No. 5 Preserving Louisiana’s Legacy by Nancy W. HawkinsNo. 6 Louisiana Prehistory by Robert W. Neuman & Nancy W. HawkinsNo. 7 Poverty Point by Jon L. Gibson
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