2000. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. ISBN 0-8130-1833-1. alkaline paper, cloth. 274 pp.; a glossary, and a bibliography.
Poverty Point: A Memoir
Jon L. Gibson's recent book on the archaic period earthwork called Poverty Point reads a bit like a memoir--not a memoir for Gibson, who has studied Poverty Point for nearly fifty years, but for the site itself.
Poverty Point is a large, C-shaped, 3500-year-old earthwork located on the Maçon Ridge in the Mississippi River trench in northeast Louisiana. The 3/4 mile long earthwork is composed of a complex of six nested rings around a central open space. Five aisles split the rings into six sections, and six mounds are located in the near vicinity. Archaeological evidence suggests that Poverty Point was a town for several hundred people, the ancestors of the Tunica-speaking Koroa, Tunica, and Tioux, people who fished and hunted and gathered to feed themselves and, in their off hours, built a highly planned, beautiful piece of engineering work using baskets of earth.
Poverty Point is a large, C-shaped, 3500-year-old earthwork located on the Maçon Ridge in the Mississippi River trench in northeast Louisiana. The 3/4 mile long earthwork is composed of a complex of six nested rings around a central open space. Five aisles split the rings into six sections, and six mounds are located in the near vicinity. Archaeological evidence suggests that Poverty Point was a town for several hundred people, the ancestors of the Tunica-speaking Koroa, Tunica, and Tioux, people who fished and hunted and gathered to feed themselves and, in their off hours, built a highly planned, beautiful piece of engineering work using baskets of earth.
Gentle Prose and Metaphor
The book's memoir-like quality comes from the gentle prose. Many of the chapters are similar in content to a standard archaeological site report, but take on a new significance, as Gibson discusses what we in dryer texts like to call "artifact assemblages" as "gear and appliances," and "iconography" as "stone and earth symbolism." Gibson provides a chapter on previous archaeological research at the site with an affectionate familiarity. The characters of Clarence Webb, James Ford, Stu Neitzel and the others are not so much given credit for their research as warmly defined in their relationship with the site.
The memoir theme--or more precisely the memory theme--is most apparent in the brief paragraphs that head each chapter. Gibson calls them "life snippets," and they are taken from field notes, from oral interviews, and from personal memories of Poverty Point past and present.
Gibson's use of the metaphor of remembering Poverty Point enhances the humanness of the place, lends the information an almost melancholy air, and and at the same time reflects the mystery of the site, how little we really know of the site and the people who lived there, in an effective way.
The memoir theme--or more precisely the memory theme--is most apparent in the brief paragraphs that head each chapter. Gibson calls them "life snippets," and they are taken from field notes, from oral interviews, and from personal memories of Poverty Point past and present.
Gibson's use of the metaphor of remembering Poverty Point enhances the humanness of the place, lends the information an almost melancholy air, and and at the same time reflects the mystery of the site, how little we really know of the site and the people who lived there, in an effective way.
Liberally illustrated with maps and photographs, The Ancient Mounds of Poverty Point was written primarily for the general public, but has plenty of science for the interested professional.
