Is The Poverty Point Octagon World’s Largest Ancient Solstice Marker?

Ellen Lloyd - AncientPages.com - Located in northeast Louisiana, North America, about 25 miles from Lake Providence, is a giant C-shaped, 3,500-year-old earthwork known as Poverty Point, a place that remains a prehistoric mystery.

A bird-shaped mound at Poverty Point in Louisiana. Image credit: UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Poverty Point mounds are older than the Parthenon in Greece, the Great Wall of China, and the Colosseum in Rome. Some archaeoastronomers have discovered solar alignments at Poverty Point and suggested this place is the world's most significant ancient solstice marker.

The local hunter-gatherers of the Poverty Point culture constructed the bird-shaped mound. The inhabitants of Poverty Point used the natural resources plentiful in the Mississippi floodplain. Their culture is considered a pre-agricultural society, but the workforce and the thousands of hours of work it took to construct the earthworks suggest a highly evolved society, living and surviving together.

The ancient site consists of six enormous, concentric earthen ridges and several large mounds, including one of the largest in North America. The five aisles and six sections of cliffs form a partial octagon, and archaeologists think the ridges, once 5 feet (1.5 meters) high, were foundations for dwellings.

Archaeological Excavations At Poverty Point Mounds

Archaeologists excavating at the Poverty Point site have unearthed hundreds of intriguing ancient artifacts. Bird effigies, stone tools, spears, and gems not native to Louisiana have been found, along with hundreds of round clay balls. Historians believe that these clay balls were used for cooking. The balls were heated in a fire and then placed in a pit, which created an oven for cooking meat and other foods.

Little is known about Poverty Point houses; limited evidence suggests they may have looked similar to those above. Credit: Louisiana State Exhibit Museum

The massive earthworks have been nominated to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of their cultural significance.

What Was The Purpose Of The Earthworks?

Scientists still need to understand the purpose of the earthworks. Over the years, various theories have been presented.

Map of Poverty Point. Credit: Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) CC BY-SA 2.5

Some scholars suggest the Poverty Point site was a permanent residence of a large, socially, politically, and economically ranked population. The town was spatially organized in a geometrically symmetrical order.

At the beginning of 1980, archaeoastronomers Kenneth Brecher and William Haag discovered what they considered to be solar alignments at Poverty Point. The shape of the overall site is semi-octagonal, different in design from any others in the United States. The aisles or avenues define a central point within the area, although it is not marked in any way that has been identified.

Artist's conception of the Poverty Point archaeological site near Epps, Louisiana at it's height. Credit: Herb Roe - CC BY-SA 2.5

According to researchers Brecher and Haag, two of the avenues may have pointed to the setting location of Canopus (190° degrees) and Gamma Draconis (344° degrees).

In the book Knowledge in Motion: Constellations of Learning Across Time and Place, Andrew P. Roddick, an assistant professor in anthropology at McMaster University, writes that "Poverty Point was erected on a meridian, actually tow meridians spread 600 meters apart. In practice, the layout of mounds on a straight line is merely a matter of sighting and back-sighting, but the practice of triangulation adds the possibility of measurement across space. It is in fact depended on known distances between points."

Poverty Point may be the world's most prominent ancient solstice marker, but much more research must be conducted before we can reach this conclusion.

For now, the function and use of Poverty Point remain a mystery.

Written by - Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com

Updated on March 1, 2024

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