What Was Poverty Point? We Explain

Despite being unfortunately named after a 19th-century plantation, the archeological site known as Poverty Point is actually a place of immense historical wealth, whose Indigenous creators have been described as "incredible engineers with very sophisticated technical knowledge." Many of the earthworks in North America were historically attributed by white American settlers to have been built by the Vikings, Welshmen, or Hindus, essentially anyone but the Indigenous population. And even when the earthworks were attributed to Indigenous people, they were underlined as a curiosity for "suggest[ing] that pre-agriculture, pre-ceramic hunting societies were more socially complex than previously thought," per The New York Times.

This assumption that non-agricultural societies aren't "complex" can be seen even in the archeological rhetoric used for Indigenous cultures on the North American continent. In doing so, not only is the history of these societies suppressed but the very knowledge of these cultures and societies is erased for the purpose of upholding a linear line of progress towards a single idea of "complexity." Even in 2021, archeologists continue to acknowledge that "we as a research community—and population as a whole—have undervalued native people."

The Monumental Earthworks at Poverty Point have yet to become household names like the Pyramids of Giza or the Sphinx and have never been declared a wonder of the world, but maybe in the 21st century, they'll be recognized as just one aspect of a fantastically intricate and complex history. What was Poverty Point? We explain.

Most of the names given to the time periods featuring Indigenous people in North America bear are oriented from a Euro-centric worldview. According to the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, the Archaic Period is followed by what's described as the Woodland Period, which lasted 4,000 years from 3000 BCE to 1000 CE, and the Mississippian Period, which lasted less than 600 years from 1000 CE to 1520.

Archeologists line up the end of the Mississippian Period with the spread of European colonizers and settlers in North America and describe this early period of colonization as the Exploratory Period, which lasted from 1520 to 1670. It's at this point that the Indigenous people of Turtle Island were finally allowed into the annals of history with what's known as the Historic Period, which is considered to last from 1670 to the present.

In "The Dawn of Everything," David Graeber and Gavid Wengrow note that the name Archaic Period "is really more of a chronological slap in the face." By referring to a period as literally archaic is to declare, "this is the period before anything particularly important was happening." Archeologists have declared that various others cultures have an "Archaic Period," like the Ancient Greeks, but few span seven millennia. And to name an archeological time "Historic" is to underline that nothing of historical concern happened beforehand. However, nothing is further from the truth.

The construction of the Monumental Earthworks was simultaneously very quick and very slow. Some of the mounds were built during the Middle Archaic, around 3900 BCE to 3600 BCE. And according to the Journal of Archeology, these mounds were later incorporated into what would become the Monumental Earthworks at Poverty Point. The Lower Jackson Mound and the Motley Mound are both mounds that date to the Middle Archaic.

Meanwhile, Bird Mound, which was built 2000 years later, is believed to have been built in three months, according to Science Daily. But while the construction of the Mound was done relatively quickly, the rest of the earthen ridges are believed to have been built "over several centuries." As Graeber and Wengrow note, "to construct the earthworks at Poverty Point ... must have taken enormous amounts of human labor and a strict regime of carefully planned-out work, but we still have little idea how that labor was organized." And News Star writes that even portions of the Monumental Earthworks that were previously thought to be natural by archeologists, like the West Plaza Rise, are now realized to be just as constructed as the rest of the Monumental Earthworks.

Although most of the construction occurred during the Late Archaic Period, "the final construction event of Mound D" occurred during the Mississippian Period, roughly around 1100 CE to 1150 CE. This means that altogether, Indigenous people were interacting with the Monumental Earthworks for almost 6,000 years.

The culture that created the Monumental Earthworks is unfortunately also named after the plantation that existed near the site during the 19th century and is known as the Poverty Point culture. The people who inhabited the lower Mississippi Valley are believed to have lived there between 1730 BCE to 1350 BCE. According to "The Dawn of Everything," "they were hunters, fishers, and foragers, exploiting a superabundance of wild resources," and living without the use of farming or writing. In addition, they were "highly skilled engineers," as seen by the Monumental Earthworks.

However, the early mounds of the Monumental Earthworks show that the Poverty Point culture wasn't the first group of people in the area, nor were they the first "to establish traditions of public architecture." 64 Parishes writes that the Poverty Point culture "developed a remarkable and extensive trade in high-quality stones." There have also been numerous artifacts found at the Monumental Earthworks made of loess and clay. In total, it's estimated that "some 78 tons of exotic stone were imported into Poverty Point."

Much of the life of the Poverty Point culture remains a mystery to archeologists because no skeletal remains or burial grounds have been found. It's possible that bones may have dissolved away since "bone preservation is poor in the loess that covers the main site," but it's also possible that archeologists simply haven't noticed them as they may be interred away from the mounds.

It's questionable whether or not the Monumental Earthworks at Poverty Point can be considered a city or not. The design of Poverty Point resembles other Neolithic settlements with its concentric ridges, like Nebelivka in Ukraine, which is described as one of the "world's first cities." However, there's little evidence to suggest that people actually maintained a residence at the Monumental Earthworks.

While some texts describe Poverty Point as a "forgotten city," others instead classify it as a "socially complex culture," per Newswise. However, this differentiation between simple and complex societies mostly comes out of an archeological search for hierarchy. If "no evidence [is] unearthed of centralized government or administration – or indeed, any form of ruling class ... these enormous settlements [have] all the hallmarks of what evolutionists would call a 'simple', not a 'complex' society," Graeber and Wengrow write. And yet, the Monumental Earthworks are acknowledged as a complex society due to its architectural accomplishments despite the lack of evidence for hierarchical social organization.

Some of the earliest and largest cities in history occur in Mesoamerica, and although a hierarchical top-down structure may not be necessary for the establishment of a city, the residence of a population at a specific location is considered to be a necessity for a site to be considered a city. As a result, it's difficult to say whether or not the Monumental Earthworks at Poverty Point were actually used by Indigenous groups as a city without any proof of residence settlements.

One of the first modern reports of the Monumental Earthworks at Poverty Point was by Jacob Walter, who traveled through the area in the 1830s. Walter reported the existence of the Monumental Earthworks, describing it as an "Indian Town," but had little interest in the site since he was looking for lead mines instead. As a result, the site continued to be largely ignored for another century.

World History Encyclopedia writes that the land was purchased in 1843 by Phillip Guier and by 1851 the plantation on the land was known as Poverty Point. Although Walter published his report about the Monumental Earthworks in 1973, by that point the Monumental Earthworks had been "extensively farmed for decades." There were some small-scale excavations in the 20th century, including those by archeologist C.B. Moore in 1913. However, they "failed to recognize the scope and complexity of the site."

According to PBS, the full scale of the Monumental Earthworks was discovered by accident after a 20-year-old aerial photograph taken of the Monumental Earthworks was uncovered in 1953. It was at this point that the Monumental Earthworks started to draw attention and were declared a National Monument and National Historic Landmark during the 1960s. In 2014, the Monumental Earthworks at Poverty Point were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.