Investigating the Mounds

We woke up this morning to the gentle sound of rain on the RV roof. It was a good morning to snuggle deeper into the covers and sleep a while longer. Since I wanted to check out the Poverty Points National Historic Site farther north though, I knew I needed to get up and get the RV ready to move.

So chores and the checklist later, in even heavier rain, we pulled out of the campground and headed off to learn about the Mounds People. These are not the chocolate-coconut guys, these are people who migrated to Louisiana from the north and west, probably from Russia or western Asia, 10,000 years ago or more.


Over time, they formed settlements in Louisiana and Mississippi, settlements which were agriculturally based and fairly stable. These people built mounds, earth structures, some of which formed fairly large communities.


At Poverty Point, there was a complex construction of concentric ridges, built in a semi-circle. Dwellings were probably built on the ridges. Behind the outside ring, centered, is a large mound which, they say, looks like a bird in flight when viewed from overhead. Here's a depiction of it.







You can see that it was a very large community of hundreds of dwellings.



Archaelogists think there were a series of tall posts placed around the outside edge of the dwellings that served as a 'calendar' for the seasons by reading the shadows thrown by the posts. The symmetry is interesting and the placement of the bird is to the west. On the northern edge is a mound which appears to have been a burial site.



The museum had large displays of points from the site, like these. (Eat your heart out, Sis.)






And something that I think is unique to this area are these little clay balls, which, since rocks are hard to find here, were made to be heated in the fire and then placed in pots to cook food.





My RV was not allowed on the road around the site and it was raining so hard I opted not to walk it, so I never learned whether the site is being actively excavated now or not.



The Montana-turned-Mississippi man tells me than Montanans can stand on these mounds and not know they are on them. Locals, however, think they are noticeably high. The mounds/ridges are in the trees in the distance, but they also circle around toward me. Where I stood to take the picture would be the central area of the half-circle.

After we left Poverty Point, I crisscrossed the area by RV looking for a latte'. If there is such a thing around here, it was no easier for me to spot than a mound. So, back to the campground to do laundry. We'll be on the road again tomorrow.

And tomorrow is a new day.