ca. 1,000 - 700 B.C

Poverty was a thriving trade center for the entire Mississippi Valley by 1000 B.C. dates between the years 1700 and 700 B.C.. Poverty Point, located in northeastern Louisiana, is the earliest major mound complex site found in America north of Mexico. Poverty Point contains some of the largest prehistoric earth works in North America.

Built by hunter-gatherers, the site consists six rows of concentric ridges which were at one time were five to over twenty feet high.The site is surrounded by other outlying earthen mounds that overlook the Mississippi River flood plain.

The site was probably the major cultural and ceremonial center for the people of the Poverty Point culture. These mounds were most likely first built for burial disposal, as man has always been concerned with death. The layout suggests an octagonal shape that measures three-quarters of a mile in diameter of the outermost ridges. These outer ridges are also thought to have served as housing or camp sites.

1000 B.C.
This marks the beginning of a new period for man in North America. This period, commonly refereed to as the Woodland Period lasted until about 700 A.D. It is during this time that the Adena people settled in the Ohio Valley. They lived in small clusters scattered throughout the wide Ohio Valley that stretches across Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and parts of Pennsylvania and New York. They supported themselves through intensive hunter-gathering and trade. They were skilled craftsmen, pottery and jewelry makers.

Adena culture centered around a religion of complex rituals that focused on the afterlife. Each kin group started with a small earthen work which covered the grave of an individual. As more and more burials were to the added to the site, it grew in size . Soon these simple graves grew into burial chambers that not only contained the deceased but also his earthly treasures such as bracelets, mica, marine shells, wooden masks and finely craved pipes-articles essential for adjustment to the "afterlife." The Adena, who became know as the "Mound Builders," began the 1700 year custom and practice of mound building that spread throughout the Ohio Valley, the Midwest, the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic.