Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:54:27.122Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The View from Jaketown: Considering Variation in the Poverty Point Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2022

Grace M. V. Ward Open the ORCID record for Grace M. V. Ward [Opens in a new window] ,
Seth B. Grooms ,
Andrew G. Schroll  and
Tristram R. Kidder
Grace M. V. Ward*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA
Seth B. Grooms
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA
Andrew G. Schroll
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA
Tristram R. Kidder
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA
*
(g.m.ward@wustl.edu, corresponding author)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent research at Jaketown, a Late Archaic earthwork site in the Lower Mississippi Valley, suggests that the culture-historical framework used to interpret Jaketown and contemporary sites in the region obscures differences in practices across sites. As an alternative, we propose a framework focused on variation in material culture, architecture, and foodways between Jaketown and Poverty Point, the regional type site. Our analysis indicates that people used Poverty Point Objects and imported lithics at Jaketown by 4525–4100 cal BP—earlier than elsewhere in the region. By 3450–3350 cal BP, people intensively occupied Jaketown, harvesting a consistent suite of wild plants. Between 3445 and 3270 cal BP, prior to the apex of earthwork construction at Poverty Point, the community at Jaketown built at least two earthworks and multiple post structures before catastrophic flooding sometime after 3300 cal BP buried the Late Archaic landscape under alluvium. These new data lead us to conclude that the archaeological record of the Late Archaic Lower Mississippi Valley does not reflect a uniform regional culture. Rather, relationships between Jaketown and Poverty Point indicate a multipolar history in which communities selectively participated in larger social phenomena—such as exchange networks and architectural traditions—while maintaining diverse, localized practices.

Investigaciones recientes en Jaketown, un sitio de obras de tierra del Arcaico Tardío en el Valle Inferior del Mississippi sugiere que la perspectiva histórico-cultural utilizado para interpretar Jaketown y los sitios contemporáneos en la región oscurece las diferencias en las prácticas entre estos sitios. Como alternativa, proponemos una perspectiva centrada en la variación de la cultura material, la arquitectura y los hábitos alimenticios entre Jaketown y Poverty Point, el sitio tipo regional. Nuestro análisis indica que la gente usó Objetos de Poverty Point e importó líticos en Jaketown entre 4525-4100 cal aP, antes que en otras partes de la región. Hacia el 3450-3350 cal aP, la gente ocupó intensamente Jaketown, cosechando un grupo constante de plantas silvestres. Entre 3445-3270 cal aP, antes de la cúspide de la construcción del movimiento de tierras en Poverty Point, la comunidad de Jaketown construyó al menos dos obras de tierra y múltiples estructuras de postes antes de las inundaciones catastróficas que ocurrieron después del 3300 cal aP y que enterraron el paisaje del Arcaico Tardío debajo de el aluvión. Estos nuevos datos nos llevan a concluir que el registro arqueológico del Valle Inferior del Misisipi en el Arcaico Tardío no refleja una cultura regional uniforme. Nosotros sugerimos que las relaciones entre Jaketown y Poverty Point indican una historia multipolar donde las comunidades participaron selectivamente en fenómenos sociales amplios, como redes de intercambio y tradiciones arquitectónicas, mientras mantenían prácticas diversas y localizadas.

Keywords

Poverty Point cultureLower Mississippi Valleyhunter-gatherersearthworkspaleoethnobotanyintersite variabilityculture historycultura de Poverty Pointvalle inferior del Mississippicazadores-recolectoresobras de tierrapaleoetnobotanicavariability entre sitioshistoria cultural
Type
Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 4 , October 2022 , pp. 758 - 775
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for American Archaeology

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Atalay, Sonia 2006 Indigenous Archaeology as Decolonizing Practice. American Indian Quarterly 30:280–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, Leigh 2019 Oral Traditions and Mounds, Owls and Movement at Poverty Point: An Archaeological Ethnography of Multispecies Embodiments and Everyday Life. Journal of Social Archaeology 19:356–378.Google Scholar
Bloch, Leigh 2020 Animate Earth, Settler Ruins: Mound Landscapes and Decolonial Futures in the Native South. Cultural Anthropology 35:516–545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brain, Jeffery P. 1978 The Archaeological Phase: Ethnographic Fact or Fancy? In Archaeological Essays in Honor of Irving B. Rouse, edited by Dunell, Robert C. and Hall, Edwin S., pp. 311–318. De Gruyter Mouton, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, Christopher 2020 OxCal v4.4. Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Oxford.Google Scholar
Byrd, Kathleen M. (editor) 1991 The Poverty Point Culture: Local Manifestations, Subsistence Practices, and Trade Networks. Geoscience and Man 29. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Clark, John E. 2004 Surrounding the Sacred: Geometry and Design of Early Mound Groups as Meaning and Function. In Signs of Power: The Rise of Cultural Complexity in the Southeast, edited by Gibson, Jon L. and Carr, Philip J., pp. 214–233. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Connaway, John M., McGahey, Samuel O., and Webb, Clarence H. 1977 Teoc Creek: A Poverty Point Site in Carroll County, Mississippi. Archaeological Report 3. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson.Google Scholar
Fausto, Carlos, and Neves, Eduardo G. 2018 Was There Ever a Neolithic in the Neotropics? Plant Familiarisation and Biodiversity in the Amazon. Antiquity 92:1604–1618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinman, Gary M., and Neitzel, Jill E. 2020 Excising Culture History from Contemporary Archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 60:101230. DOI:10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, James A., Phillips, Philip, and Haag, William G. 1955 The Jaketown Site in West-Central Mississippi. Anthropological Papers Vol. 45, Pt. 1. American Museum of Natural History, New York.Google Scholar
Ford, James A., and Webb, Clarence H. 1956 Poverty Point, a Late Archaic Site in Louisiana. Anthropological Papers Vol. 46, Pt. 1. American Museum of Natural History, New York.Google Scholar
Fritz, Gayle J. 2007 Keepers of Louisiana's Levees: Early Mound Builders and Forest Managers. In Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives, edited by Denham, Tim, Iriarte, Jose, and Vrydaghs, Luc, pp. 189–209. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California.Google Scholar
Fritz, Gayle J., and Kidder, Tristram R. 1993 Recent Investigations into Prehistoric Agriculture in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Southeastern Archaeology 12:1–14.Google Scholar
Gibson, Jon L. 1994 Empirical Characterization of Exchange Systems in Lower Mississippi Valley Prehistory. In Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North America, edited by Baugh, Timothy G. and Ericson, Jonathon E., pp. 127–175. Plenum Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, Jon L. 2000 The Ancient Mounds of Poverty Point: Place of Rings. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Gibson, Jon L. 2007 “Formed from the Earth at That Place”: The Material Side of Community at Poverty Point. American Antiquity 72:509–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, Jon L. 2010 Poverty Point Redux. In Archaeology of Louisiana, edited by Rees, Mark A., pp. 77–96. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Gibson, Jon L. 2021 Poverty Point: Legends and Lore. History Press, Charleston, South Carolina.Google Scholar
Greenlee, Diana M., Hughes, Richard E., and Origer, Thomas M. 2014 Poverty Point's Obsidian. Louisiana Archaeology 37:89–107.Google Scholar
Haag, William G., and Webb, Clarence H. 1953 Microblades at Poverty Point Sites. American Antiquity 18:245–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hargrave, Michael L., Berle Clay, R., Dalan, Rinita A., and Greenlee, Diana M. 2021 The Complex Construction History of Poverty Point's Timber Circles and Concentric Ridges. Southeastern Archaeology 40:192–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hays, Christopher T. 2018 Feasting at Poverty Point with Poverty Point Objects. Southeastern Archaeology 38:193–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hays, Christopher T., Weinstein, Richard A., and Stoltman, James B. 2016 Poverty Point Objects Reconsidered. Southeastern Archaeology 35:213–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heckenberger, Michael J., Christian Russell, J., Fausto, Carlos, Toney, Joshua R., Schmidt, Morgan J., Pereira, Edithe, Franchetto, Bruna, and Kuikuro, Afukaka 2008 Pre-Columbian Urbanism, Anthropogenic Landscapes, and the Future of the Amazon. Science 321:1214–1217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henry, Edward R., Ortmann, Anthony L., Arco, Lee J., and Kidder, Tristram R. 2017 Tetrahedron Baked-Clay Objects from an Early Woodland Context at the Jaketown Site, Mississippi. Southeastern Archaeology 36:34–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holland-Lulewicz, Jacob 2021 From Categories to Connections in the Archaeology of Eastern North America. Journal of Archaeological Research 29:537–579.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howe, LeAnne 2014 Embodied Tribalography: Mound Building, Ball Games, and Native Endurance in the Southeast. Studies in American Indian Literatures 26(2):75–93.Google Scholar
Jackson, H. Edwin 1989 Poverty Point Adaptive Systems in the Lower Mississippi Valley: Subsistence Remains from the J. W. Copes Site. North American Archaeologist 10:173–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, H. Edwin 1991 The Trade Fair in Hunter-Gatherer Interaction: The Role of Inter-Societal Trade in the Evolution of Poverty Point Culture. In Between Bands and States: Sedentism, Subsistence, and Interaction in Small Scale Societies, edited by Gregg, Susan A., pp. 265–286. Occasional Paper No. 9. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Johnson, Jay K. 1993 Poverty Point Period Quartz Crystal Drill Bits, Microliths, and Social Organization in the Yazoo Basin, Mississippi. Southeastern Archaeology 12:59–64.Google Scholar
Kassabaum, Megan C. 2019 A Method for Conceptualizing and Classifying Feasting: Interpreting Communal Consumption in the Archaeological Record. American Antiquity 84:610–631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidder, Tristram R. 2006 Climate Change and the Archaic to Woodland Transition (3000–2500 Cal B.P.) in the Mississippi River Basin. American Antiquity 71:195–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidder, Tristram R. 2011 Transforming Hunter-Gatherer History at Poverty Point. In Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology as Historical Process, edited by Sassaman, Kenneth E. and Holley, Donald H. Jr., pp. 95–119. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Kidder, Tristram R. 2012 Poverty Point. In The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, edited by Pauketat, Timothy R., pp. 460–470. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Kidder, Tristram R., Adelsberger, Katherine, Arco, Lee J., Schilling, Timothy M. 2008 Basin-Scale Reconstruction of the Geological Context of Human Settlement: An Example from the Lower Mississippi Valley, USA. Quaternary Science Reviews 27:1255–1270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidder, Tristram R., Henry, Edward R., and Arco, Lee J. 2018 Rapid Climate Change–Induced Collapse of Hunter-Gatherer Societies in the Lower Mississippi River Valley between ca. 3300 and 2780 cal yr BP. Science China Earth Sciences 61(2):178–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidder, Tristram R., Kai, Su, Henry, Edward R., Grooms, Seth B., and Ervin, Kelly 2021 Multi-method Geoarchaeological Analyses Demonstrates Exceptionally Rapid Construction of Ridge West 3 at Poverty Point. Southeastern Archaeology 40:212–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidder, Tristram R., Ortmann, Anthony L., and Allen, Thurman 2004 Testing Mounds B and E at Poverty Point. Southeastern Archaeology 23:98–113.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Geoffrey R. 1982 The Jaketown Site: Surface Collections from a Poverty Point Regional Center in the Yazoo Basin, Mississippi. Archaeological Report No. 9. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Geoffrey R. 1991 Foreign Lithics of the Poverty Point Period in the Yazoo Basin. In The Poverty Point Culture: Local Manifestations, Subsistence Practices, and Trade Networks, edited by Byrd, Kathleen M., pp. 187–192. Geoscience and Man 29. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel 2006 Civilisations, Their Elements and Forms. In Marcel Mauss: Techniques, Technology, and Civilisation, edited by Schlanger, Nathan, pp. 57–74. Durkheim Press/Berghahn Books, New York.Google Scholar
Miller, Jay 2015 Ancestral Mounds: Vitality and Volatility of Native America. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortmann, Anthony L., and Kidder, Tristram R. 2013 Building Mound A at Poverty Point, Louisiana: Monumental Public Architecture, Ritual Practice, and Implications for Hunter-Gatherer Complexity. Geoarchaeology 28:66–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peres, Tanya M. 2017 Foodways Archaeology: A Decade of Research from the Southeastern United States. Journal of Archaeological Research 25:421–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Philip 1970 Archaeological Survey in the Lower Yazoo Basin, Mississippi, 1949–1955. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Phillips, Philip, Ford, James A., and Griffin, James B. 1951 Archaeological Survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, 1940–1947. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Reimer, Paula J., Austin, William E. N., Bard, Edouard, Bayliss, Alex, Blackwell, Paul G., Ramsey, Christopher Bronk, Butzin, Martin, et al. 2020 The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curve (0–55 cal kBP). Radiocarbon 62:725–757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russo, Michael, and Heide, Gregory 2001 Shell Rings of the Southeast US. Antiquity 75:491–492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanger, Matthew C. 2021 Joining the Circle: Native American Philosophy Applied to the Study of Late Archaic Shell Rings of the Southeastern United States. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 28:737–765.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sassaman, Kenneth E. 2005 Poverty Point as Structure, Event, Process. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12:335–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sassaman, Kenneth E., and Brooks, Samuel O. 2017 Situating the Claiborne Soapstone Vessel Cache in the History of Poverty Point. American Antiquity 82:781–797.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saucier, Roger T. 1994 Geomorphology and Quaternary Geologic History of the Lower Mississippi Valley. 2 vols. Mississippi River Commission, US Army Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg, Mississippi.Google Scholar
Saunders, Joe W. 2004 Are We Fixing to Make the Same Mistakes Again? In Signs of Power: The Rise of Cultural Complexity in the Southeast, edited by Gibson, Jon L. and Carr, Philip J., pp. 146–161. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Saunders, Joe W., and Allen, Thurman 2003 Jaketown Revisited. Southeastern Archaeology 22:155–164.Google Scholar
Saunders, Joe W., Jones, Reca, Moorhead, Kathryn, and Davis, Brian. 1998 “Watson Brake Objects,” an Unusual Archaic Artifact Type from Northeast Louisiana and Southwest Mississippi. Southeastern Archaeology 17:72–79.Google Scholar
Saunders, Joe W., Mandel, Rolfe D., Garth Sampson, C., Allen, Charles M., Thurman Allen, E., Bush, Daniel A., Feathers, James K., et al. 2005 Watson Brake, a Middle Archaic Mound Complex in Northeast Louisiana. American Antiquity 70:631–668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherman, Simon P. III 2019 Sourcing Bifaces from the Alexander Collection at Poverty Point (16WC5) Using VNIR (Visible/Near-Infrared Reflectance) and FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Reflectance) Spectroscopy. Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, Mississippi State University, Starkville. Proquest (ATT 13903180).Google Scholar
Smith, Bruce D. 2011 The Cultural Context of Plant Domestication in Eastern North America. Current Anthropology 52:S471–S484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spivey, S. Margaret, Kidder, Tristram R., Ortmann, Anthony L., and Arco, Lee J. 2015 Pilgrimage to Poverty Point? In The Archaeology of Events, edited by Gilmore, Zackary I. and O'Donoughue, Jason M., pp. 141–159. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Swanton, John R. 1911 Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 43. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Twiss, Katheryn C. 2012 The Archaeology of Food and Social Diversity. Journal of Archaeological Research 20:357–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walthall, John A., Webb, Clarence H., Stow, Stephen H., and Goad, Sharon I. 1982 Galena Analysis and Poverty Point Trade. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 7:133–148.Google Scholar
Ward, Heather D. 1998 The Paleoethnobotanical Record of the Poverty Point Culture: Implications of Past and Current Research. Southeastern Archaeology 17:166–174.Google Scholar
Watts, Vanessa 2013 Indigenous Place-Thought and Agency amongst Humans and Non Humans (First Woman and Sky Woman Go on a European World Tour!). Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, and Society 2(1):20–34.Google Scholar
Webb, Clarence H. 1968 The Extent and Content of Poverty Point Culture. American Antiquity 33:297–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, Clarence H. 1982 The Poverty Point Culture. School of Geoscience, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Wengrow, David, and Graeber, David 2015 Farewell to the “Childhood of Man”: Ritual, Seasonality, and the Origins of Inequality. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21:597–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Stephen, and Brain, Jeffrey P. 1983 Excavations at the Lake George Site, Yazoo County, Mississippi, 1958–1960. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Wilson, Shawn 2008 Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, Nova Scotia.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric R. 1984 Culture: Panacea or Problem? American Antiquity 49:393–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zedeño, María Nieves 2009 Animating by Association: Index Objects and Relational Taxonomies. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19:407–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar