This is Poverty Point

Poverty Point is a monumental earthwork complex built and occupied from about 1700 BC to 1100 BC, often considered the "New York City" of its day because it appears to have been far more elaborate and sophisticated than anything else in North America at that time. This created landscape is unique in the world and originally included five earthen mounds, six concentric C-shaped ridges, and a huge inner plaza; another culture added a sixth mound, Mound D, about 1,800 years after Poverty Point was abandoned. Archaeologists estimate that preparing the landscape and building the earthworks may have required moving about 100 million 50-lb. basketloads of soil, basketload by basketload. Its significance is heightened by the fact that these earthworks were built by people who lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild foods, an accomplishment archaeologists long doubted hunter-gatherers could achieve. The diverse habitats of the Mississippi River floodplain and Macon Ridge provided food and other necessary resources, while the lack of local stone, essential for stone tools, led to the development of a vast trading network.

Pioneer, Louisiana · United States