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AN INTRODUCTION TO LOUISIANA ARCHAEOLOGY
important factor in the settlement and florescence of the Poverty Point Site. It was situated near to and between two immense streams, the Mississippi River just to the east, and the Arkansas River, which at that time was flowing southward just to the west of the site.3 These tremendous rivers and their subsidiary drainages near the site were cardinal factors in the vast trade network that characterized the Poverty Point Culture.
Today the major portion of the Poverty Point Site is a recently established state park situated on an escarpment about 15 feet high along the right bank of Bayou Magon (Pi. 8). Mound A, which reaches a height of 70 feet, is the largest earthen construction at this site. In the plan view it is triangular with the apex pointing east. In profile the west face of Mound A is quite steep, while the east face is gently sloped and is thought to have functioned as a platform and ramp. The maximum dimensions at the mound base are 640 feet north-south and 710 feet east-west. Immediately to the east of Mound A are six concentrically placed earthen ridges, which form six semicircles that terminate at Bayou Magon. They are transected in four places by aisles that radiate from a vacant area, called the central plaza, within the inmost ridge. These ridges are about 5 to 9 feet high and 164 feet broad, and they are approximately 150 feet apart from crest to crest. The maximum diameter of the outer ridge is 3,964 feet, and that of the inner ridge measures 1,950 feet. About 2,220 feet north of Mound A is Mound B, a conical tumulus, 21 feet in height with a base diameter of 195 feet. The Motley Mound, located one and one half miles due north of the center of the semicircles, is also assigned to the site complex. Similar in shape, but smaller than Mound A, the Motley Mound is oriented north-south with the ramp slope facing south. Conclusions about the true relationship of the Motley Mound to the Poverty Point Site are presumptive, however. Although the mound resembles Mound A and seems to
3.	Jon L. Gibson, "Poverty Point, the First North American Chiefdom," Archaeology, Vol. 27 (1974), No. 2, pp. 104-105; fames A. Ford, A Comparison of Formative Cultures in the Americas, Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, Vol.
11	(Washington, D.C., 1969); Webb, The Poverty Point Culture-, Roger T. Saucier, Quaternary Geology of the Lower Mississippi Valley, Arkansas Archaeological Survey Publications in Archaeology, Research Series, No. 6 (Fayetteville, 19741-
POVERTY POINT CULTL
PLA1
Aerial view of the Poverty Point Site in West Carroll Parish. The ridges are accentuated by plantings of crimson clover. Mound A is to the left center. (Courtesy of Wylie Harvey, Office of State Parks.)
be astronomically affiliated with it, the only exploration of the Motley Mound consisted of clearing an 8-foot profile halfway down the mound, which "exhibited artificial fill with soil containing fragments of Poverty Point clay objects."4
For that matter, the oft-quoted relationship of Mound B to the Poverty Point Culture is not much more empirical. Excavations into Mound B revealed several interesting manifestations, but no artifacts diagnostic of the Poverty Point Culture were reported in the mound itself. James A. Ford directed excavations of Mound B and in the ridge areas of the site in 1942, 1943, and 1955. On the ground surface over
4.	James A. Ford and Clarence H. Webb, Poverty Point: A Late Archaic Site in Louisiana, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 46, Pt. 1 (New York, 1956); Gibson, "Poverty Point, the First American Chiefdom"; William G. Haag and Clarence H. Webb, "Microblades at Poverty Point," American Antiquity, Vol. 18 (1953), No. 3, p. 247.