Trip East - Poverty Point World Heritage Site, LA

 

We head to the Poverty Point World Heritage Site in Epps, LA

We start at the Visitor's Center

There are 5 mounds here.  The mounds contain 27 million cubic feet of soil.  If each basket they used to transport the soil head 1 cu. ft; of soil it would have taken 27 million baskets to form the mounds.

 There is a walking tour or a driving tour - we opt to drive.  You can see the Bird Mound in the distance across the road

 The mounds were built by indigenous people during the Late Archaic period in North America, between 1700 and 1100 BC.  Poverty Point was abandoned around 1100 BC.  Why remains a mystery.   A subsequent American Indian group came along around 700 A.D and occupied only a small part of the site for a brief period.  Then there was intermittent use for 2900 years until it was rediscovered in the 1800's AD

We pass by the 6 C shaped  earthen ridges, measuring 4 to 6 feet high in places, have an outside diameter of three-quarters of a mile apart.  These ridged are where the people lived

We arrive at the Bird Mound and are able to walk to the top.

Stair Master!

A well deserved rest.

Over the wing, between the two trees on the left, before the next tree line lays the furthermost mound.

Whoever goes up must go down!

There are two of these circles of white cylinders on the site.  Soil cores and excavations discovered   the circles were originally complied of large wooden posts up to 2.1 feet in diameter.  
The bottom of the posts holes were up to 9 ft. deep.  The posts did not rot in place but were removed and refilled with soil.  Around 40 of these circles were discovered by magnetic imaging.  Several were rebuilt numerous times.  It is still unknown why they were built and how they were used.

Mound C

Mound D

Mound E

The People brough dirt from this area to build the mounds

An amazing place, so glad we stumbled upon it .  Built between 1700 and 1100 BC, long before the Greek, Roman, Persian, Neo-Babylonian Empires.  Mound A dates to 1350 BC and is the largest mound built by American Indians at Poverty Point or at any earlier time in US History.  

Only the Mounds of Watson Brake are older, dating to 3500 BC.