The UNESCO World Heritage Committee decided on June 22, 2014 to inscribe the Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point, a state park in Louisiana, as a UNESCO World Heritage site. This prestigious designation is a global recognition of the site’s outstanding universal value. Poverty Point becomes the 22nd U.S. site on the World Heritage List, including the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty.
Located in Louisiana’s Lower Mississippi Valley, Poverty Point comprises a remarkable system of monumental mounds and ridges built into the landscape for residential and ceremonial use by a sophisticated society of hunter-fisher-gatherers.
The impressive site survives as a testament to Native American culture and heritage. The twenty six Native American Tribes of United South and Eastern Tribes (USET) joined the committee in support of this World Heritage nomination.
Eight centuries after Egyptian laborers dragged huge stones across the desert to build the Great Pyramids, what is now known as Poverty Point was a site in what is now northeastern Louisiana. The inhabitants took on the enormous task of building a complex array of earthen mounds and ridges overlooking the Mississippi River flood plain. “It has been estimated that landscape preparation and earthworks construction may have required moving as many as 53 million cubic feet of soil. Considering that a cubic foot of soil weighs 75-100 pounds, and that the laborers carried this dirt in roughly 50-pound basket loads, it is obvious that this was a great communal engineering feat.”1 They left behind one of the most important archaeological sites in North America.
According to its website, “Poverty Point's inhabitants imported stone and ore over great distances. Projectile points and other stone tools found at Poverty Point were made from raw materials which originated in the Ouachita and Ozark Mountains and in the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys. Soapstone for vessels came from the Appalachian foothills of northern Alabama and Georgia. Other materials came from distant places in the eastern United States. The extensive trade network attests to the complex and sophisticated society that built the Poverty Point earthworks.”
Dated between 1700 and 1100 B.C., this site of more than 400 acres is unique among archaeological sites on the North American continent. In 1962, Poverty Point was designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior. The site also became a Smithsonian Affiliate in 2010. Poverty Point is an interpretive museum offering special events, programs and guided tours. Tram tours are given daily at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m., from March 1 through October 31.
Sources:
The State Department
1Poverty Point State Historic Site, www.crt.state.la.us/louisiana-state-parks/historic-sites/poverty-point-state-historic-site/index, June 23, 2014.
