Poverty Point is an amazing place. Within the boundaries of a National and State Park in northeastern Louisiana is an elaborate earthwork constructed some 3500 years ago: elaborate and symmetrical, or at least so it has seemed.
Is this map just a little too symmetrical? (l) Map of Poverty Point by Maximilian Dörrbecker (r) 1938 aerial photograph, US Army Corps of Engineers
Some recent archaeological investigations at the site have been targeted at determining if the symmetry was planned or evolved. Did early archaeologists see more symmetry than is there? The answer to that question drives the interpretation of the site, whether Poverty Point should be seen as a planned community, or simply the end palimpsest of centuries of elaboration by Archaic hunter-gatherers.
- Read more about Poverty Point
- The Owls of Poverty Point, by William Caverlee in Louisiana Cultural Vistas
- Plan your visit (from About.com's Guide to National and State Parks)
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