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University oi Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY 109 Davenport Hall Urbana, Illinois 61801 (217) 333-3616
29 October 1980
Mrs. Peggy Gibbens 111 Citizen Street Bay St. Louis, Mississippi 39520
Dear Mrs. Gibbens:
I was flipping through an article the other day, looking for information for a paoer I'm writing, when I ran across the enclosed illustration of "Poverty Point Objects" which I promised you last summer,, Much to my embarrassment, I completely forgot that promise until I saw the illustration. I'm sorry. Usually my memory or my notes serve me better than they did in this instance.
As you see from the figure, those clay balls come in a wide variety of shapes. The specimens illustrated in this drawing were all found by archaeologists in excavations at the Claiborne site, an Indian camp in southwest Hancock County which was occupied around 1100 BC. Similar clay balls are commonly found in village sites of this period along the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi River Valley as far as southeastern Missouri.
As I mentioned during our last conversation in July, I would like to wash up, catalog and photograph the clay balls and other materials that you have from your site. This information would be a useful addition to the state site form on the location. I'll give you a call while I am in Bay St0 Louis during December and January and see if this would be convenient with you.
Sincerely