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Foods

In the 1950s and 1960s, when archaeologists were starting to realize
just how large and imposing the Poverty Point site really was, they
assumed that a large, permanently settled, and complex society was
responsible for it. Prevailing theory held that large complex
societies were agricultural. So, despite its early age and simple
tools, Poverty Point people were assumed to have been farmers.
Because other peoples of the same age depended on hunting and
gathering, Poverty Point society was assumed to be transitional: one
of the first groups in eastern North America to take up farming,
corn farming.

At the time, no plant remains had been found at Poverty Point.
Consequently, it was impossible to tell if Poverty Point people had
farmed, or if they had made a living some other way, such as by
intensively gathering native wild plants or by hunting and gathering
along the especially bountiful narrow environmental seams where
uplands joined the Mississippi floodplain.We still do not have much
information about foods eaten by Poverty Point peoples, but we have
enough to be sure about one thing. Poverty Point peoples were not
corn farmers. They were hunter-gatherers. We are only beginning to
find out what they ate. We have more information about meats than
plants, because bones are more resistant to decay through time and
are more easily recovered by standard excavation methods.

From the Claiborne site on the Gulf to inland sites up the valley,
like Poverty Point and Copes, major meat sources included fish,
reptiles, small and large mammals, and birds. Freshwater fish were
the main source of meat everywhere. They included gar, bowfin,
catfish, gaspergou, bass, sunfish, and other species. Brackish water
clams were collected at Claiborne and nearby coastal sites, but
inland groups did not utilize river mussels at all. Oysters were
eaten at the Cedarland site, near Claiborne, but apparently nowhere
else. Turtles were caught, especially snapping, mud-musk, red-eared,
and soft-shelled species. Water snakes, rat/king snakes, and racers
were eaten; so were alligators and frogs.

FIsh, a staple food

*Fish, a staple food for Poverty Point people

*Next to fish, venison was the most important meat, but small
mammals, such as cottontail and swamp rabbits, gray and fox
squirrels, raccoons, opossums, and a few others also contributed.
Waterfowl and a few upland birds made up a minor part of the diet;
they included ducks and geese, coots, herons, egrets, pelicans,
Sandhill cranes, turkeys, crows, and others.

Plants undoubtedly provided the main part of Poverty Point food, but
because remains are rarely preserved, we have a limited view of
their contribution. Nuts predominate and include hickory nuts,
pecans, acorns, and walnuts. Their relative importance may be
inflated because they have hard shells, which were often burned in
campfires. Charred nut shells are more readily preserved than
uncharred plant remains, but even if exaggerated, the importance of
nuts to Poverty Point peoples is undeniable. Other identified plant
remains include persimmons, wild grapes, wild beans, hackberries and
seeds from honey locust, goosefoot, knotweed, and doveweed.

Squash seeds, rinds, and stems have been found in small quantities
at the Copes site, but this plant may have provided containers
rather than food. There is no certainty that this variety was even
cultivated, but even if it was and had been used for food, it was
not very important.

These remains do not form a complete list of Poverty Point table
fare. Food remains have only been recovered from a handful of sites.
Differences in archaeological techniques and natural preservation
conditions from site to site complicate direct comparisons and make
it difficult to say which foods were preferred and how much they
contributed to diets. One thing is certain: Poverty Point peoples
throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley did not eat the same kinds
of foods in the same proportions.

The most difficult problem with subsistence is figuring out just how
the large Poverty Point site population, which may have numbered in
the hundreds or possibly thousands, existed by simple hunting and
gathering. This problem lessens when one begins to add up the
incredible food richness of the land around Poverty Point. The
Poverty Point site was located in an environment where naturally
abundant plants and animals were even more bountiful and varied.

Atlatal Throwing, step by step

*Throwing a javelin with an atlatl; close-up shows atlatl hook on spear

*Recently archaeologists have found that the site's inhabitants were
primarily eating acorns, hickory nuts, fish, and turtle, in that
order. The great use of aquatic species and acorns at the Poverty
Point site suggests that most of Poverty Point's foods came from an
environment that included slow-moving or motionless water.
Archaeologists have recently found evidence that a large permanent
or seasonal lake lay alongside the Poverty Point site. No lake is
there today, only woods and farmland. Such overflow lakes, located
near the Mississippi River and high ground, are the most productive
natural food sources in the generally productive Mississippi "delta"
environment.

Much more information is needed before we can fully describe Poverty
Point subsistence, locally and regionally, but we can draw a few
general conclusions. We know that Poverty Point groups throughout
the Mississippi Valley were hunter-gatherers, not farmers. No matter
how you figure it, the group who lived at the Poverty Point site not
only met its daily food needs but also supplied enough extra to
support an unparalleled building program.

We know that Poverty Point peoples from different sections of the
Lower Mississippi Valley ate different kinds of foods or similar
foods in different combinations. Sometimes people living only a few
miles apart did, too. These differences are probably due to
differences in available foods, and that, in turn, was partly
dependent on nature and partly on human factors, such as food
preferences and what season of the year that exploitation took place.

Finally, we know that Poverty Point subsistence generally emphasized
aquatic resources, especially fish, which is logical considering the
location of sites on streams and lakes down in the Mississippi
swampland and along the bluffs bordering the swampland. Without the
steady and superabundant supply of fish, none of the remarkable
accomplishments at the Poverty Point site would have been possible. 

Everyday Tools

Hunters used spears; bows and arrows were unknown. Spears were
tipped with a variety of stone points. Some points, like the ones
illustrated below, were exclusive Poverty Point styles, but many
were forms which had been made for hundreds and even thousands of
years before.Spears were thrown with atlatls, or spear-throwers,
which gave added distance and power. Shaped like oversized crochet
needles, atlatls were held in the throwing hand with the hooked end
inserted into a shallow socket in the butt of the spear. Hurled with
a smooth, gliding motion, the spear was cast toward the target while
the atlatl remained in the hand.

Projectile PointsAtlatl Weights

*Projectile Points; Motley, Epps, Pontchartrain. Atlatl Weights:
Gorgets, and Tablets

*Atlatl hooks were sometimes made of carved antler, and polished
stone weights were attached to the atlatl shaft. The weights helped
to transfer the forces of the throwing motion to the spear in
flight. Atlatl weights were made in a variety of sizes and shapes,
including rectangular, diamond, oval, boat-shaped bars, and a host
of unusual forms. Some were quite elaborate with shiny finishes and
engraved decorations. Many broken weights have repair holes along
the edges.

The hunters and fishermen also used plummets. These objects were
ground from heavy lumps of magnetite, hematite, limonite, and
occasionally other stones. Shaped like plumb bobs or big teardrops,
plummets often had encircling grooves or holes drilled in the small
end to aid in attachment. Some archaeologists consider plummets to
be bola weights, but they were more likely weights for cast and gill
fishing nets.

Other kinds of hunting devices, such as deadfalls, snares, and
traps, were probably used by Poverty Point hunters, but because they
were made of perishable wood, their use can only be inferred from
the presence of bones of nocturnal animals among food remains. The
presence of fishbones, ranging from tiny minnows to giant gar,
suggests that fishermen used some technique, such as poisoning or
muddying, for mass catches.

Hematite Plummets

*Hematite Plummets

*Other kinds of tools undoubtedly were used to obtain food, but we
cannot identify with certainty which of the many other chipped and
ground artifacts may have been used. Gathering plant foods, such as
nuts, acorns, seeds, fruits, berries, greens, and vegetables,
probably did not require any tools. Digging edible roots would have
required some sort of tool, but it need not have been anything other
than a convenient pointed stick. Stone hoes have been found at
several Poverty Point villages. Some of these objects have coatings
which look like melted glass or thick shellac. The coatings are
called sickle-sheen and formed when hoes chopped through sod.

Foods were prepared with a variety of implements. Animals were
butchered with heavy chipped stone bifaces (or cleavers) and sharp
flakes or blades (knives). Battered rocks, pitted stones, and
mortars served to pound nuts, acorns, and seeds into flour and oil.

Food was cooked in open hearths and earth ovens. The earth oven was
an ingenious Poverty Point invention. A hole was dug in the ground,
hot "clay balls" were packed around the food, and the pit was
covered. Ovens efficiently regulated heat and conserved energy.
"Clay balls" were hand-molded; fingers, palms, and sometimes tools
were used to fashion dozens of different styles. Although they are
often referred to as "clay balls," they are not really balls, and
they are made of silt, not clay. These objects are distinguishing
hallmarks of Poverty Point culture. They are so common that
archaeologists call them Poverty Point objects.

Some archaeologists have cooked in earth ovens, made like those at
Poverty Point. They found, if they always put the same number of
Poverty Point objects in the oven every time they cooked, that the
shapes (cylindrical, biconical, spheriodial, etc.) controlled how
hot the pit got and how long it stayed hot. Using different shaped
objects was apparently the cooks' means of regulating cooking
temperature, just like setting the time and power level in modern
microwave ovens.

Poverty Point Objects

*Poverty Point Objects

*Poverty Point peoples had a variety of vessels for cooking,
storage, and simple containment. They used pots and bowls made of
stone and baked clay. Stone vessels were chiseled out of soapstone
(a dense soft rock) and sandstone at the rock quarries. Tons of
soapstone were imported to the Poverty Point site from quarries in
northern Georgia and Alabama. Most stone vessels were plain, but a
few had decorations and small handles. One notable soapstone
fragment was decorated with a bas-relief of a bird and another with
a panther. Holes drilled along the edges of some fragments show that
cracked vessels were often repaired by lacing them back together.
Broken pieces also were made into beads, pendants, and, sometimes,
plummets.

Poverty Point clay vessels mark the first appearance of pottery in
the Lower Mississippi Valley. Archaeologists accord great historical
significance to this event. James Ford argued that Poverty Point
pottery making derived from Indians in South or Central America and
was passed on through people living along the Atlantic and eastern
Gulf coasts of North America. Ned Jenkins suggested that knowledge
of pottery came from Alabama as a spin-off of soapstone trade.
Recent excavations at the Poverty Point site suggest thatPoverty
Point people started designing pottery independently of the other
southern centers of early pottery. This conclusion is based on new
archaeological evidence showing that some Poverty Point pottery was
made before soapstone containers and eastern-style pottery arrived
at the site. There are site-to-site differences in Poverty Point
pottery. Some pottery contains plant fibers, like early ceramics in
other parts of the South. Some contains sand and grit, bone
particles, concretions, and/or hard lumps of clay; some contains no
additions or impurities. It is just pure clay or löess (a fine,
silty, wind-deposited sediment). Some archaeologists think sand,
bone, and other things were intentionally added to the wet clay as
temper, additives designed to prevent breaking when pots were fired.
Other archaeologists suspect the included particles are natural and
just happened to be in the dirt selected to make the pottery. If the
inclusions were natural, it suggests that potters were merely using
the handiest supply of suitable material, no matter what it
contained. Such a practice seems to be in keeping with the first
groping efforts of a new technology. Most Poverty Point pottery was
plain, but decorations sometimes were made by lightly pressing
objects or fingernails into the damp clay, by rocking simple tools
back and forth, and by pinching or incising patterns into the
surface. Many other tools were used in the everyday tasks of
building houses, doing odd jobs, and making other tools. We know
Poverty Point peoples used stone tools for these jobs and probably
also used wood, bone and antler ones, as well. Most of these were
very similar to those used by earlier Archaic people. Hammerstones,
whetstones, polishers, and other tools required little or no
preparation, beyond selecting a suitable rock. Ground Stone Tools
*Ground Stone Tools *Fabricated tools include gouges, adzes, axes,
and drills. These objects were chipped from large pieces of gravel
or big flakes. The working edges of these tools often bear polish or
tiny scratches, which confirm they were used for chopping, carving,
digging, and drilling. Some of these items, especially celts and
adzes (cutting tools with the blades set at right angles to the
handles), have counterparts made of ground and polished stone. These
ground tools were made by chipping, battering, grinding, and
polishing in combination or singly. Another group of chipped stone
artifacts is quite abundant at the Poverty Point and Jaketown sites
and occurs in respectable numbers at other Poverty Point villages.
These curious objects are called microliths (meaning small stones),
and the most common type is a Jaketown perforator. Perforators are
made from flakes and blades (specialized flakes at least twice as
long as they are wide with parallel sides); one end is expanded and
the other is pointed. They look like small car keys. They were first
presumed to be drills or punches, but when modern experiments showed
that they could be made by whittling antler, bone, and even wood,
they came to be regarded as worn-out scrapers. However,
archaeologist Sam Brookes found the end of a perforator lodged in
the bottom of an unfinished hole in a stone tablet, suggesting that
the original assumption was correct.

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