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Two Types of Ritual Space at the Poverty Point Site 16WC5

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2023

R. Berle Clay*
Affiliation:
Retired, Cultural Resource Analysts Inc., Lexington, KY, USA
*
Corresponding author: R. Berle Clay, Email: bclay@crai-ky.com

Abstract

Two types of features at the Late Archaic period Poverty Point site in Louisiana—large timber post circles and repetitively used activity surfaces later covered by mounding—are examined as spaces that were the products of historical event sequences involving their construction, their entwined but differing ritual uses, and their final deconstruction or removal. This approach is a particularizing, historicizing way of approaching the features of this monumental hunter-gatherer site, an alternative to a more generalizing view in which its totality as a site or “place” is seen as the interrelated product of many historical acts over time or as a mosaic of historically created and used “spaces.” Analysis of these feature types suggests that spaces of ritual activity in the larger site were used differently, involving different types of events and serving different functions in a developing, perhaps shifting, larger ritual landscape.

Resumen

Resumen

En el yacimiento de Poverty Point, en Luisiana, perteneciente al periodo Arcaico Tardío, se examinan dos tipos de elementos: grandes círculos de postes de madera y superficies de actividad utilizadas repetidamente y posteriormente cubiertas por montículos. Se examinan como espacios que fueron producto de secuencias de acontecimientos históricos relacionados con su construcción, su uso ritual relacionado, entrelazado pero diferente, y su deconstrucción o eliminación final. El punto de vista desarrollado es una forma particularizadora e historizadora de abordar las características de este monumental yacimiento de cazadores-recolectores, alternativa a una visión más generalizadora, en la que la totalidad del yacimiento o “lugar” se percibe más estrechamente como el producto interrelacionado de muchos actos históricos a lo largo del tiempo, un mosaico de “espacios” creados y utilizados históricamente. El análisis de estos tipos de rasgos sugiere que los espacios de actividad ritual del yacimiento se utilizaron de forma diferente, con distintos tipos de actos y que cumplían funciones diferentes en un paisaje ritual más amplio, en desarrollo y tal vez cambiante.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for American Archaeology

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