As noted in the previous post, we were looking forward to seeing the solar eclipse on August 21, which was visible from most of the U.S. What I did not mention was that we were planning to watch it from Charleston, South Carolina, which was in the path of totality. That is what we did.
Why Charleston? Some of the physics grads from Denison University who are contemporaries of the Frog were having a mini reunion at the home of a former DU faculty member. That alone was reason enough for the trip since the Frog had not seen any of these folks for over 40 years. Even if the eclipse was a total bust, we would still get to see these people.
Road trip. Neither of us had ever been to Charleston, so it seemed like a nice destination for some sightseeing despite the fact that it was not necessarily the ideal time of year to visit...hurricane season at worst and hot and humid weather at best. Although we could have flown, we had plenty of time and decided to make it into a road trip through the southeast U.S.
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| GPS track of trip to Charleston and back, August 17-26, 2017 |
Although we had been worried about the potential for hurricanes hitting the east coast, that turned out not to be a problem. In fact, all of the bad weather was in Texas. We had rain the first morning of the trip. At the end of the trip, we hurried back to avoid any problems with Hurricane Harvey that was beating up on Houston and the Texas coast. Other than that, the weather was good.
Day 1 -- Poverty Point. The main goal was getting to Charleston and back, but we thought it would be good to see a few things along the way.
Was there anything else of note to see? On a whim, I did a search of World Heritage sites in the U.S. It did not seem likely there would be many (any?) along our intended route, but thought it was worth a look. Lo and behold there was one almost directly in our path for the first day...the Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point!
Huh?? What is that? I had never heard of Poverty Point.
Poverty Point is a set of earthworks and mounds, built between 1650 and 700 BC by a group of Native Americans of what is now known as the Poverty Point culture. They were located on an elevated land area (Macon Ridge) overlooking the Mississippi Delta. The name "Poverty Point" comes from the plantation which once surrounded the site.
One of the major features of the site is a series of six concentric crescent ridges. The site also has several mounds both on the outside and inside of the ring earthworks.
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| Map of the Poverty Point site from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_Point. We drove the visitor loop, which is several miles long. |
So what is the big deal? There are Indian mounds all over the eastern U.S.
First of all, it is huge. I saw somewhere that the concentric ridge design was not really recognized until it was viewed from an aerial photograph in the 1950's. Whether that is true or not, it is true that the overall structure is not immediately apparent when on site since everything is so big and spread out. The outside ridge is approximately three-quarters of a mile in diameter, while the diameter of innermost ridge is about three-eighths of a mile. The open plaza in the center is 43 acres.
Each ridge is currently about three feet high. They were likely originally at least five feet high but have been worn down through agricultural activities, including plowing, over the past several centuries.
The biggest structure at the site is Mound A, which was built about 1350 BC. It is 72 feet tall, 710 feet long (east to west) and 660 feet wide (north to south) or about 390,000 tons of dirt.
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| Part way up the steep walkway to the top of Mound A |
That is a LOT of dirt to move without wheelbarrows, wagons, or pack animals. They had only baskets, simple tools, and their own labor. It was the largest earthen construction in North America at the time and remained so for the next 2,000 years. Archaeological core samples indicate it was built quickly, perhaps in as little as 90 days!
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| Looking back at the car from the top of Mound A. The much smaller Mound E is on the far right with a couple of trees on top. |
Secondly, this site must have been the center of a huge trade network, probably via the river systems accessible from here. Seventy-eight tons of rocks and minerals from as much as 800 to 1000 miles away were brought to Poverty Point, a location that contained no stone of its own. Its people needed this raw material to craft into weapons, tools and ceremonial items. As noted on the Wikipedia site:
Many of their tools appear to have been made on-site, as there is evidence of debris from their construction process found across much of Poverty Point. However, they were also active in trade with other Native American peoples. A disproportional amount of imported items, consisting of projectile points and microliths, have been determined to have originated in the Ouachita and Ozark Mountains and in the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys. Other materials derived from trade are soapstone from the southern Appalachian Mountains of Alabama and Georgia, and copper and galena artifacts, indicating trade with the prehistoric copper-producing tribes in the upper Great Lakes region.
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| Some of the more than 8000 spear points found at Poverty Point |
All the more remarkable is that these earthen works were built by pre-agricultural people. These people were not settled farmers but were hunter-gatherers. Poverty Point may well be the largest hunter-gatherer settlement that has ever existed.
It is still uncertain how the mounds were used (raised platforms above the flood plain for housing?) or why they were abandoned around 1100 BC (climate change?). Although the Wikipedia website has lots of information, there were several nice series of modern day pictures at this website by the State of Louisiana. (Be sure and click the "Next" button on that website to see all of the pictures.)
Vicksburg. We stopped in Vicksburg for the night. We could see the Vicksburg National Military Park from our hotel window. Although we had really enjoyed visiting this battleground several years ago, we did not think it was necessary to visit again. However we did eat at an interesting local place, Rusty's Riverfront Grill. Not only was it a good restaurant, but we saw some interesting parts of town. The restaurant is directly across the street from the Lower Mississippi River Museum. The museum looked interesting since it appears to be on a ship, but it was closed by the time we got there. Given its rave reviews on Yelp we may try to check it out if we are ever back this way.
All in all it was a good first day, especially since we left late to avoid rush hour in DFW.
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