Placing the Poverty Point Mounds in their Temporal Context

Abstract

Sampling biases in archaeological research may inadvertently lead to unsubstantiated assumptions about the relationship between various site features. The majority of radiometric dates from the Poverty Point site have been recovered from excavations in the large, earthen ridges. While archaeological investigations have previously been undertaken in the Poverty Point mounds, few of these excavations have yielded radiometric dates. As a result of the almost complete absence of chronometric data from Poverty Point's mounds, the construction of these features is generally assumed to have occurred during the same time span as construction of the ridges. New radiometric dates from the Poverty Point mounds reveal information about the timing and pace of their construction. These new chronological data provide the basis for a more detailed developmental sequence, and may allow for the development of new hypotheses about population size, the organization of labor, architectural relationships, and the degree of social complexity at Poverty Point. Examining the development of cultural landscapes, such as the chronology of earthwork construction at Poverty Point, also provides a better understanding of the ways prehistoric societies interacted with and modified the environments in which they lived.