Customer Reviews

The Ancient Mounds of Poverty Point: Place of Rings (Native Peoples, Cultures, and Places of the Southeastern United States)

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Poverty Point in Louisiana is the grand-daddy of all Indian mounds in the US. Built in the shape of a amphitheater on a low ridge overlooking the swamps of the Mississippi River, Poverty Point is 3,500 years old. Author Gibson, an archaelogist, gives us a vivid, speculative picture of the people who built Poverty Point

You can skip the first two chapters which cover the history of theories about Poverty Point. Chapter Three begins the description of the place. Gibson goes through chapters about who lived at Poverty Point, their economy, politics, religion, equipment, and how they built the massive earthworks -- which consist of six concentric half-moon rings spread over a square kilometer of ground -- an enormous undertaking. It wasn't the first mound built in the United States -- but it was far larger than any previous structures.

The Poverty Point people, in Gibson's view, were pre-agricultural hunters and gatherers which makes their achievement even more remarkable. They lacked stones, so rocks for spearheads and other tools were imported from hundreds of miles away. What did they exchange for the rocks? Gibson doesn't know. That's an unanswered question. What did they eat? Gibson says mainly fish from the lakes and bayous nearly surrounding the place. Was Poverty Point only a ceremonial site? If not how many people lived there? Gibson calls it a residential site but doesn't believe it was large enough to be called a city.

This book blends archaelogical findings with ethnology, common sense and, frankly, guesswork -- but guesses by an expert on the subject. As the oldest major Indian ruin in the United States, Poverty Point has a mystical significance similar in my mind to Stonehenge.

Smallchief