Additional notes on the Poverty Point Site in Northern Louisiana

1954 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Ford
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
American Antiquity ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
Extensive Surface ◽  
Made In ◽  
Poverty Point

The two large mounds at the Poverty Point and Motley sites in West Carrol Parish, Louisiana, were first adequately described by C. B. Moore (1913, Fig. 29), and for a long while these structures and the cultural remains scattered about them remained one of the principal puzzles in the archaeology of the lower Mississippi Valley. Clarence Webb has made extensive surface collections from this locality for a number of years and his three articles inAmerican Antiquity, the last written with Haag, form the bulk of the information which we have on the culture (Webb, 1944, 1948; Haag and Webb, 1953). The purpose of the present brief note is to report some newly discovered facets of the Poverty Point cultural complex.The writer was able to work a few weeks at the site in the spring of 1952 and again in 1953. However, the most remarkable discovery was not made in the field but in the Cartographic Laboratory of the Mississippi River Commission in Vicksburg.

The Archaic of the Lower Mississippi Valley

1961 ◽  
Vol 26 (3Part1) ◽  
pp. 317-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
William G. Haag
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Ohio River ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Alluvial Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
Poverty Point

AbstractNo archaeological remains which the majority of specialists will accept as Archaic have been found in the Mississippi Valley from the mouth of Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico. Despite this, the literature reflects a general acceptance of the belief that the Archaic stage is well represented in the Lower Valley. The presence of concentrated Archaic populations in northern Alabama and western Tennessee and Kentucky has given comparative support to these expectations and has provided part of the source for some of the hypothetical statements in the literature of what the Lower Valley Archaic ought to be like. Although the failure of writers to agree on a definition of Archaic which will satisfy the evidence in all of the areas of Eastern United States has contributed to the problem of identifying Archaic materials in the Lower Valley, the lack of these remains can best be explained by the geology of the region. The cutting and filling of the Alluvial Valley during the Pleistocene changes in sea level have removed or buried all of the surfaces that might have been occupied by Archaic peoples. The surface of the Alluvial Valley is everywhere less than 5000 years old. Possible Late Archaic sites are located on old stable beach ridges or near enough to the Pleistocene terraces not to have been included in the general pattern of Recent coastal subsidence. It is concluded that Archaic or earlier materials are absent in the Lower Alluvial Valley of the Mississippi River. Neither Tchefuncte nor Copell are accepted as Archaic; Poverty Point is viewed as transitional from an Upper Archaic tradition to some phase of the Formative stage. Poverty Point materials may not be expected to be found in quantity along the Gulf Coast of the Mississippi Delta region.

Meander Loops and the Cahokia Site

1964 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles J. Bareis
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
River Channel ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Channel Migration ◽  
Mississippi River Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley

AbstractThe locations of certain mounds at the Cahokia site indicate that the rate of Mississippi River channel migration in the American Bottoms in the Upper Mississippi Valley has differed from the rate of channel movement in the Lower Mississippi Valley. The American Bottoms was probably the most favorable section of the Mississippi River Valley for long-term prehistoric settlement with regard to location within the present meander belt of the river.

scholarly journals Automated characterization of ridge-swale patterns along the Mississippi River

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia Downard ◽  
Stephen Semmens ◽  
Bryant Robbins
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Linear Feature ◽  
Topographic Features ◽  
Backward Erosion Piping ◽  
The Individual

The orientation of constructed levee embankments relative to alluvial swales is a useful measure for identifying regions susceptible to backward erosion piping (BEP). This research was conducted to create an automated, efficient process to classify patterns and orientations of swales within the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV) to support levee risk assessments. Two machine learning algorithms are used to train the classification models: a convolutional neural network and a U-net. The resulting workflow can identify linear topographic features but is unable to reliably differentiate swales from other features, such as the levee structure and riverbanks. Further tuning of training data or manual identification of regions of interest could yield significantly better results. The workflow also provides an orientation to each linear feature to support subsequent analyses of position relative to levee alignments. While the individual models fall short of immediate applicability, the procedure provides a feasible, automated scheme to assist in swale classification and characterization within mature alluvial valley systems similar to LMV.

Possible Cahokian Contacts in Eastern and Southeastern Arkansas

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-204
Author(s):  
Marvin D. Jeter ◽  
Robert J. Scott ◽  
John H. House
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Time Trend ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Mound Sites

Most discussions of Cahokian “contact” and “influence” in the Lower Mississippi Valley have focused on a “horizon” around 1200 AD and sites east of the Mississippi River; another site was documented recently in northeastern Louisiana. Here, we present additional westerly evidence from sites in eastern and southeastern Arkansas that have produced: Missouri Flint Clay figurines; flakes resembling Burlington and Crescent Quarry cherts; hoes, polished “hoe chips,” and other items made of Mill Creek chert; plus a few Cahokia-style chunkey stones and a Cahokia arrow point, but as yet no Cahokian ceramics. These items tend to cluster at and near three mound sites, in contexts around 1200 AD, with hints of a southward time trend. Unlike the few “elite” or sacred figurines found in mounds, most other items are utilitarian and may have been recirculated (rather than chiefly-redistributed) via “trade fairs” at mound centers, to commoners from the hinterlands.

A classic examination of fluvial processes and forest patterns: Victor Ernest Shelford’s (1954) ‘Some Lower Mississippi Valley Flood Plain Communities: Their Age and Elevation’. Ecology 35(2): 126–142.1

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 818-826
Author(s):  
Kimberly M. Meitzen
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Forest Succession ◽  
Flood Plain ◽  
Forest Community ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Community Patterns ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Fluvial Processes ◽  
Historical Resources

The study of the interaction between fluvial processes and forest community patterns owes elements of its origins to the research of Shelford (1954) on the Mississippi River valley. Shelford (1954) is a classic for many reasons; three highlighted here are its role of establishing a methodology for applying historical resources for long-term research studies, its influence on developing conceptual models of forest succession relative to multiple controlling factors, and its recognition of the rapid and extensive impact of human activities on altering natural land-cover patterns and the important role of analog forests for management and conservation. References to Shelford (1954) within the literature have increased every year since its publication and I believe its presence among varied disciplines will continue.

Watson Brake, a Middle Archaic Mound Complex in Northeast Louisiana

2005 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe W. Saunders ◽  
Rolfe D. Mandel ◽  
C. Garth Sampson ◽  
Charles M. Allen ◽  
E. Thurman Allen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Broad Spectrum ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Clay Loam ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Full Extent ◽  
Ritual Space ◽  
Middle Archaic ◽  
Poverty Point

Middle Archaic earthen mound complexes in the lower Mississippi valley are remote antecedents of the famous but much younger Poverty Point earthworks. Watson Brake is the largest and most complex of these early mound sites. Very extensive coring and stratigraphic studies, aided by 25 radiocarbon dates and six luminescence dates, show that minor earthworks were begun here at ca. 3500 B.C. in association with an oval arrangement of burned rock middens at the edge of a stream terrace. The full extent of the first earthworks is not yet known. Substantial moundraising began ca. 3350 B.C. and continued in stages until some time after 3000 B.C. when the site was abandoned. All 11 mounds and their connecting ridges were occupied between building bursts. Soils formed on some of these temporary surfaces, while lithics, fire-cracked rock, and fired clay/loam objects became scattered throughout the mound fills. Faunal and floral remains from a basal midden indicate all-season occupation, supported by broad-spectrum foraging centered on nuts, fish, and deer. All the overlying fills are so acidic that organics have not survived. The area enclosed by the mounds was kept clean of debris, suggesting its use as ritual space. The reasons why such elaborate activities first occurred here remain elusive. However, some building bursts covary with very well-documented increases in El Niño/Southern Oscillation events. During such rapid increases in ENSO frequencies, rainfall becomes extremely erratic and unpredictable. It may be that early moundraising was a communal response to new stresses of droughts and flooding that created a suddenly more unpredictable food base.

SITUATING THE CLAIBORNE SOAPSTONE VESSEL CACHE IN THE HISTORY OF POVERTY POINT

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 781-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth E. Sassaman ◽  
Samuel O. Brookes
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
The State ◽  
Southern Appalachians ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
Poverty Point

A cache of 12 soapstone vessels from the Claiborne site in Mississippi was recently repatriated to the state after being excavated in 1968 and removed to Ohio. As a locus of Poverty Point affiliation, Claiborne was positioned along a Gulf Coast route for the influx of soapstone into the lower Mississippi valley from quarries in the southern Appalachians, hundreds of kilometers to the east. Although residents of Claiborne were likely to have been active traders during the heyday of Poverty Point exchange, ca. 3600–3400 cal BP, new AMS assays on carbon deposits from seven of the soapstone vessels show that the cache was emplaced ~200 years later, during or shortly before the abandonment of Poverty Point. Reported here are the results of AMS assays, observations on vessel form and function, and preliminary inferences about the significance of the cache in the context of environmental and cultural change after 3200 cal BP.

scholarly journals The Pine Saddle site (3PL1080) in the Ouachita Mountains, Polk County, Arkansas

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy K. Perttula ◽  
Bo Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
The South ◽  
Ouachita Mountains ◽  
Tool Manufacture ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Indian Populations ◽  
East And West ◽  
Local Materials ◽  
Poverty Point

Novaculite was procured and knapped by aboriginal Indian populations living in southwestern Arkansas for thousands of years, and there are numerous prehistoric novaculite quarries in the Ouachita Mountains. In Late Archaic times. this desirable material was widely traded and exchanged with other groups to the south, east, and west, particularly with the peoples living at the Poverty Point site and environs in the lower Mississippi valley in northern Louisiana. Later groups such as the Caddo also made considerable use of this material, since it was in their traditional homelands, and many habitation sites and mound centers in the region contain quantities of novaculite lithic debris and tools. Other local materials were also chosen for lithic tool manufacture, such as Big Fork chert, a distinctive black chert. Abundant amounts of novaculite and Big Fork chert are also found apparently in nondomestic Caddo contexts on lithic workshops and camp sites in the Ouachita Mountains, and one such site is discussed in this article.

Deglacial Flood Origin of the Charleston Alluvial Fan, Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley

1994 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna A. Porter ◽  
Margaret J. Guccione
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Alluvial Fan ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Silty Clay ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
The North ◽  
Sand Body ◽  
Braided Stream

AbstractLarge-magnitude flooding of the Mississippi River from proglacial lakes Agassiz and Superior most likely occurred between 11,300 and 10,900 and 9900 and 9500 yr B.P. The Charleston alluvial fan, a depositional remnant of one of these floods, is located at the head of a wide alluvial plain near Charleston, Missouri. The fan is an elongate, convex-up sand body (16 × 24 km) composed of medium- and fine-grained sand at least 8 m thick. This sand contrasts with the older coarse-grained sand of the braided stream surface to the west and south and younger silty clay of the meandering stream level to the north and east. A weakly developed soil separates the underlying braided steam deposits from the alluvial fan. A bulk-soil radiocarbon date of 10,590 ± 200 yr B.P. from the contact between the fan and clays of the meandering stream system indicates that the Charleston fan was deposited near the end of the early interval of flooding from Lake Agassiz about 10,900 yr B.P. If the Charleston fan is the last remnant of deglacial flooding in the lower Mississippi Valley, then deposition of significant quantities of sediment from largemagnitude floods between 10,000 and 9500 yr B.P. did not extend into the lower Mississippi Valley through Thebes Gap.

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