Poverty Point culture

[1] Archeologists have identified more than 100 sites belonging to this mound-builder culture, who also formed a large trading network throughout much of the eastern part of what is now the United States.

Preceding the Poverty Point Culture is the Watson Brake site in present-day Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, where eleven earthwork mounds were built beginning about 3500 BC.

[10][11] Archeological excavation has revealed a wealth of artifacts, including animal effigy figures; hand-molded, baked-clay cooking objects; simple thick-walled pottery; stone vessels, spear points, adzes, hoes, drills, edge-retouched flakes, and blades.

In addition, plummets were fashioned out of heavy iron ore imported from Hot Springs, Arkansas; they served as weights for fish nets.

[13] Many of the raw materials used, such as slate, copper, galena, jasper, quartz, and soapstone, were from as far as 620 miles (1,000 km) away, attesting to the distant reach of the trading culture.

[10] The Poverty Point culture developed a tradition of making high-quality, stylized, carved and polished miniature stone beads.

Other early cultures in eastern North America rarely used stone to make their beads, opting for softer materials such as shell or bone.

The beads depict animals common to the Poverty Point culture's environment, such as owls, dogs, locusts, and turkey vultures.