C O N S E R VA N C Y
JESSICA CRAWFORD
Field Notes
Researchers screen excavated dirt for artifacts (left) and take soil core samples (right) at Jaketown.
Investigating Poverty Point Culture SOUTHEAST—The Poverty Point culture flourished in portions of the Lower Mississippi Valley—primarily Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas—and it’s generally believed to date to approximately 1700-1000 B.C. It’s characterized by monumental architecture such as mounds and embankments, extensive long distance trade networks of raw materials, and the impressive lapidary works fashioned from these raw materials, such as highly polished jasper stone beads and ornaments. The culture was named after its largest site, the Poverty Point State Historic Site, located in northeastern Louisiana. The second largest Poverty Point site is the Conservancy˙s 70-acre Jaketown site in Mississippi. In addition
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to its Poverty Point occupation, Jaketown also has subsequent Woodland (a.d. 600) and Mississippian (after a.d. 1000) occupations, and several mounds and mound remnants from the Poverty Point and Mississippian periods. While much research has been done at the type-site in Louisiana, no major excavations have taken place at Jaketown since the 1950s, when work was done on a borrow pit during highway construction. In June of this year, T. R. Kidder and Lee Arco of Washington University and Anthony Ortmann of Murray State University directed a joint field school at the site with the objectives of defining its chronology, examining its mound construction history, and analyzing soil sediments to determine how frequent flooding from the Mississippi River and its tributaries affected its occupations.
Centuries of flooding have deposited a large amount of soil over Jaketown, burying its earliest occupations deep below the surface. After digging approximately 12 feet down, the crew reached the dark soil that characterized the rich Poverty Point occupation zone. At this depth, they found what appeared to be a mound or some other type of earthwork. The researchers also relocated a trench that was excavated during the 1950s as well as postmolds in the Poverty Point occupation zone that are indications of some type of structure. Almost nothing is known about the types of structures the Poverty Point people built. Samples for radiocarbon dating were collected to determine when the Poverty Point people lived at Jaketown, and how the subsequent Woodland and Mississippian
fall • 2009
