When the real size and magnificence of Poverty Point came to be realized
in the 1950s, it was believed that such developments were possible only
when agriculture or a similarly efficient means of food production were
known. In North America this agriculture was assumed to be based on
corn, beans and squash because when Europeans arrived in the New World,
these were the staple crops. But evidence for agriculture involving
these foods has so far not been found in indisputable Poverty Point
contexts. This lack was not altogether due to recovery or identification
problems because plant remains have turned up at several sites,
including Poverty Point itself.
Poverty Point culture might have developed without agriculture. One idea
was that ordinary hunting, fishing, and collecting in special localities
could have been the basis of Poverty Point livelihoods (Gibson 1973). In
areas with generous expanses of elevated lands and swampy river bottoms,
wild plant and animal foods were not only bountiful, they were present
year-round. By precise timing of food-getting efforts with nature’s
seasonal rhythms, Poverty Point peoples could have gotten all the food
they needed and probably as much extra as they desired.
Another suggestion was that Poverty Point life might have involved
farming all right, but of a different kind. Mounting evidence showed
that a unique brand of horticulture had developed in eastern North
America before Poverty Point culture ever began. The plants that were
grown included sunflower, sumpweed, probably goosefoot, and possibly
others. Other than sunflower, you would be right in thinking these are
not widely cultivated species today, although they are common garden
plants. They are notorious weeds and modern science has produced a
variety of herbicides to get rid of them. However, they are easy to
propagate. Native cultivation need not have involved anything more than
scattering seeds over open ground. These plants produced enormous
quantities of nutritional seeds. Thus, from the point of view of return
for amount of work invested, this kind of gardening would have been
economically efficient. Unlike other agriculture, this kind of
farming—if it really can be called that—would have fit in quite well
with hunting, fishing and plant collecting.
We are only starting to find out what kinds of wild foods were eaten,
and of these, animals are better known than plants because their bones
are more resistant to decay and are easier to find. From the Gulf to the
northernmost inland territories, meat sources included fish, reptiles,
small and large mammals, and birds (Smith 1974; Gagliano and Webb 1970;
Byrd 1978; Jackson 1981). Shellfish were collected at coastal sites,
where brackish-water clams were abundant. Oysters were not commonly
eaten. Inland villagers do not seem to have eaten freshwater mussels at
all. Freshwater fish seem to have been the most consistent animal food,
occurring at practically every well-preserved site throughout the Lower
Mississippi Valley. Gar, catfish, buffalo fish, sunfish, and other
species were caught. Various kinds of turtles were also commonly taken.
Alligators and even snakes were sometimes eaten. Deer were important
sources of meat everywhere, probably ranking close to fish in terms of
overall contribution to local diets. Cottontail and swamp rabbits,
opossums, raccoons, squirrels, and other small mammals were hunted, as
were turkeys, sandhill cranes, and other kinds of birds. There seems to
have been considerable region-to-region and perhaps site-to-site
differences in the importance of small mammals and birds.
Plant foods identified from Poverty Point refuse and cooking pits
include hickory nuts, pecans, acorns, walnuts, persimmons, wild grapes,
wild beans, hackberries, and seeds from honey locust, goosefoot,
knotweed, and doveweed (?) (Shea 1978; Woodiel 1981; Jackson 1981; Byrd
and Neuman 1978).
These remains are far from a complete list of Poverty Point table fare.
Food residues have only been recovered at a handful of sites, far too
few to make sweeping generalizations about Poverty Point subsistence.
Differences in archaeological collecting methods and in preservation
conditions from site to site inhibit detailed comparison. Present
information will not allow us to say what foods were preferred or to
work out their relative contributions to villagers’ diets.
Due to these problems, only general conclusions can be drawn. Even
though the quest for food remains has only just begun in earnest, the
failure of corn, beans and squash to turn up anywhere casts considerable
doubt about the traditional view of Poverty Point peoples as farmers. As
a matter of fact, of these three crops important in Southeastern Indian
diets at A. D. 1600, only squash has been found anywhere in the eastern
United States as early as Poverty Point times (Byrd and Neuman 1978).
Since we do not know if the goosefoot and knotweed seeds found at
Poverty Point sites were domesticated or wild varieties, we cannot be
certain whether or not Poverty Point peoples had gardens of these native
plants. All we really know, at present, is that Poverty Point
communities throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley ate wild plants and
animals. In the final analysis, we may anticipate that there was no
single, uniform pattern of obtaining food in the Lower Mississippi
Valley. Geographic and cultural differences were just too great.