Nate, thanks for taking the time to share your work and be a no-nonsense ambassador and advocate for understanding the rich history of the precontact period. It’s really fascinating to hear all the carefully executed work that you and your colleagues do to advance our knowledge of a period that is rarely, if ever, taught to us in the US. I first learned of the Poverty Point site from your channel several years ago and made it a point to visit the site back in 2021 when I was traveling through the south. It’s was a mind-blowing experience to witness the scale of the site and learn the sophistication and reach of the culture that created it. Thanks again and keep up the great work!
I love these videos! I’m a part-time history nerd from NE Mississippi and I’ve always been interested in the history of the peoples that lived here before me. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and taking the time to collect data and create this content!
Dr. Groom's approach really stimulates the imagination. There is a story to be found in the dirt itself. Can't wait for more of it to be told (or interpreted).
What an awesome video!!!! My favorite from Nathanael so far! The tempo was excellent as well as the information!!! I live near Poverty Point and Jaketown and have seen the amount of artifacts found near these places. To me, the artifacts demonstrates how long civilization has been present in this landscape. Thank you for bring this rich history to this community! Keep it coming!
Grew up the road from the Jaketown site. My parents helped do fieldwork on the site when they were college students. My father used to point hunt after spring plowups all over that part of the Delta on various friends' fram.. He found some cooking balls while bumming around on a farm in the 60's.
Great conversation guys! I live in the suburbs of St. Louis where Seth went to school. I am wondering if a similar conversation could be had about Cahokia? Thanks much for this!
Thanks, but we’re just two very regular archaeologists. Seth's work is fantastic and there's a reason he got the job at App State, but there are many more like him.
@@NathanaelFosaaen It's more the look and the energy you both exude. Love the Tats and youth brings a more open mind to a field that needs more modern attitudes.....thanks gain
Thank you so much - I love conversations like this! Especially the introduction of nuance :)) Is it possible that the idea that the "whole world changed" when PP was abandoned is related to the bronze age collapse across the sea?
Just an amateur commenting- Personification of things is a native point of view. It is crucial to try to understand what is left behind. Performance is how they tried to influence the environment. Great educational video.
Loved this. Thanks both so much. Quick question, and sorry if I've got it wrong, at one point you both appear to dismiss "trade". I'm presuming this is because items only seem to be going in one direction rather than reciprocally. Is there a possibility the other traded item(s) was perishable, like furs or food? Also would that be a general conclusion in archaeology these days, that the apparent one way movement of artifacts doesn't amount to trade? Best wishes
If perishable items were being traded we should still see the non-perishable stuff showing up outside its natural range other than Poverty Point itself. And yes for it to be trade, people have to actually trade things. Material has to change hands in both directions.
This was great! I would like to hear if there is any correlations with climate fluctuations with these sites. I live in Nebraska and I have become very interested on the rise and fall of the central plains tradition. I find it interesting that they disappeared so quickly.
Absolutely intriguing...This interview presented a new way of looking at Poverty point for me. ..too often we want to insert our western models in interpreting. I wonder what the event was ..or what the series of events were... that brought so many to a single place. It was undoubtedly serious enough as many came considerable distances to contribute.. Loved the Burning Man analogy. Much to consider. Looking through fresh eyes. Thanks Nathanael
I cannot remember the source now, but I read where there was evidence of copper smelting at Poverty Point, and the copper matched copper sources found in Michigan. The implication was that copper ore was brought to PP for processing. Is there more information on that?
This is an unrelated question about something you might be able to help me with. I'm from extreme northern Appalachia, central Pennsylvania, and know almost nothing about the people who lived here over the centuries, pre Euros. Could you recommend a book or some place i could learn a bit about them, meaning any or all time periods?
Wow! Thank you both! Speaking of narratives, 1) is it still appropriate to see Cahokia as ground zero for the Mississippian culture exploding outward or should we start wondering if it is instead the culmination of it? 2) Is Poverty Point not essentially a foraging culture's urban site, like Aguada Fexix? If so, why are the Olmecs seen as the first urban culture on the northern continent?
So let me understand this brother, so all this history is theoretical correct? And who has the most to gain from these theories, and who decides what theories are excepted as fact vs fiction? Thanks
All history is theoretical, but these are hypotheses, and hypotheses are provisionally accepted as most probable when there is good preponderance of evidence. Basically we fight about it for a decade or so and then the dust settles and we see where the evidence and analysis points.
I found the part of the conversation on how indigenous peoples concept of “personhood” differs from ours in Western societies interesting and illuminating.I think we do have a different world view. It makes it all the more unfortunate that we in the western world are still in the process of accepting many individuals from other cultures as “persons.” We are so self confident in our ignorance.
It looks similar to a Menora, Candelabra., from the air..... also: it looks like a picture of ancient waves, somewhat ... Perhaps it was once a tribe of Israel...?
Please help me understand how the jasper owl beads from poverty point were created, i do some small stonework/jewellery and i'm hard pressed to figure it out using only hand tools.. Has anyone done experimental archaeology on them, I really need to know, it is keeping me awake at night.
@@NathanaelFosaaen thank you for replying. i have diverse sandstones and jasper in my locality of several colours and it is one of the hardest things around. I have tried searching neolithic jasper techniques, poverty point owls, working jasper with sandstone. No luck. i really want to make one! I so appreciate your knowledge and enjoy your content. Huge gratitude for your continuing efforts.
And i thought ancient greeks or Phoenicians built poverty point as a way station for their ships sailing up the misissippi river to the copper mines on isle royale! Well that is what the History channel said right? 😅
Has anyone heard of the 3000+ year old stone Chinese sword found sticking out of a creek bank in north Georgia? It may be possible that ancient Chinese were in contact and inspired the beginnings of Native American civilization
Our moderator needs to prepare his questions and get the GUEST talking. What the Moderator is doing is a separate and a digression from the ‘cast’s focus. Moderator should look closer, get a better microphone kept close to moderator and talk less to pre-think his questions to avoid the “ums”. Great theme and choice of guests. Keep up the good work, but refine technique as you proceed.
This is a conversation between colleagues that I'm letting people outside the discipline observe. It's not an interview. When it's your channel you can run it how you like.
There are no non-hierarchal peoples, and I don't know what differentiates a "formal hierarchy." Maybe archeology or anthropology have a different definition of hierarchy, its a word with interesting etymology and evolution, but there are many ways people have organized, all of them are hierarchical within a cohesive group or tribe. It's part of our pack instinct. Also, egalitarian and hierarchy are not opposites. Maybe you're referring to something like class hierarchy, but hierarchy on general isn't anti-egalitarian.
This was interesting. I would say that Burning Man was probably not as accurate an analogy as the movement during the DAPL pipeline protest at Standing Rock (where my family is from), at Wounded Knee in1973 and some of the other standoffs in Canada (Oka, etc) where different tribes traveled to support each other. Burning Man takes place on Pyramid Lake Paiute tribal land but it attracts people like Neal Katyal who is as far from an Indigenous person as possible since he's advocated in front of SCOTUS on behalf of the Nestlé Corp right to use child slavery
The evidence is the earth works themselves . New LiDAR evidence has revealed an immense amount of large earthworks on the Mexican coast of the gulf from around the same period. People move around and exchange ideas. That’s a fact. There is no way that no one knew about the amazing huge river to the north, and there is no way that people didn’t know that if you follow the coast south you come to a beautiful land inhabited by many mound building societies with amazing chocolate and obsidian and jade etc. @@NathanaelFosaaen
@@NathanaelFosaaenNumerous mounds along the Eastern Gulf were turned into motels, bars, ice cream stands. My best recollection is that most of the burial mounds are not too old (relatively lol). Human remains, along with tools were found at a submerged site in Manasota - 'radio carbon dating' put it at 7000 yrs B.P. There's another cool submerged site found along the ancient St Marks river channel feeding out into Appalachee Bay. Lots of lithic material & some bone tools(?) I think. The researchers said in their paper that one unpredictable problem was being bothered by bull sharks & hammerheads... 😅
I’m just throwing my uneducated two cents in.poverty point you have massive land works built real quick you have one path blocked by water and artificial high places over looking housing .I think they were slavers the rows were for housing of the slaves .you had no product to trade with yet you had wealth from neighboring areas .you had mounds of smashed pottery .it sounds like raiders capturing tribes from around the area .you have legends of tribe of boogey men living deep in the forest .All this sounds like pre anastazi folk come up from Central America causing havoc . I bet you their is cannibalism remnants their waiting to be found .i know I have an over active imagination but it fits better than a tribe that just shows up and ban instant new culture .my opinion
I'm an (old) English immigrant to Spain and now use the net more to keep up to date. I still get Current Archaeology and Current World Archaeology magazines from the UK. The latter has had several articles about pre European civilisations in the US and am amazed how little they seem to be known. It is such a shame so much has been lost over the years. Much like everywhere. Eg. Our own Hadrian's wall has been used by local farmers as a ready made builders supplies yard for centuries. 🫣 Pleased to have found you.
Nate, thanks for taking the time to share your work and be a no-nonsense ambassador and advocate for understanding the rich history of the precontact period. It’s really fascinating to hear all the carefully executed work that you and your colleagues do to advance our knowledge of a period that is rarely, if ever, taught to us in the US. I first learned of the Poverty Point site from your channel several years ago and made it a point to visit the site back in 2021 when I was traveling through the south. It’s was a mind-blowing experience to witness the scale of the site and learn the sophistication and reach of the culture that created it. Thanks again and keep up the great work!
I'm so glad you've enjoyed and learned from it! It's stuff like this that makes the hobby worthwhile.
I love these discussions / interviews you're doing. So fascinating listening to your discussion on these locations.
Excellent conversation..
Thank you.
I love these videos! I’m a part-time history nerd from NE Mississippi and I’ve always been interested in the history of the peoples that lived here before me. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and taking the time to collect data and create this content!
Awesome video! Been enjoying your vids for several months now and look forward to each new release!
Great video regarding Jaketown / Poverty Point dynamics ~
Thanks for producing/posting☆
Dr. Groom's approach really stimulates the imagination. There is a story to be found in the dirt itself. Can't wait for more of it to be told (or interpreted).
What an awesome video!!!! My favorite from Nathanael so far! The tempo was excellent as well as the information!!! I live near Poverty Point and Jaketown and have seen the amount of artifacts found near these places. To me, the artifacts demonstrates how long civilization has been present in this landscape. Thank you for bring this rich history to this community! Keep it coming!
Grew up the road from the Jaketown site. My parents helped do fieldwork on the site when they were college students. My father used to point hunt after spring plowups all over that part of the Delta on various friends' fram.. He found some cooking balls while bumming around on a farm in the 60's.
Great conversation guys! I live in the suburbs of St. Louis where Seth went to school. I am wondering if a similar conversation could be had about Cahokia? Thanks much for this!
I love this channel. Really enjoy all the new discoveries and finds happening in terms of our earliest history in the Americas
Thanks
You guys are a breath of fresh air to the Archeological world.....thanks so much
Thanks, but we’re just two very regular archaeologists. Seth's work is fantastic and there's a reason he got the job at App State, but there are many more like him.
@@NathanaelFosaaen It's more the look and the energy you both exude. Love the Tats and youth brings a more open mind to a field that needs more modern attitudes.....thanks gain
Thank you so much - I love conversations like this! Especially the introduction of nuance :)) Is it possible that the idea that the "whole world changed" when PP was abandoned is related to the bronze age collapse across the sea?
Just an amateur commenting- Personification of things is a native point of view. It is crucial to try to understand what is left behind.
Performance is how they tried to influence the environment.
Great educational video.
Thank you guys for the discussion. Admonish your peers to do similar you tube video so that the curious can learn too. Again, thank you.
Loved this. Thanks both so much. Quick question, and sorry if I've got it wrong, at one point you both appear to dismiss "trade". I'm presuming this is because items only seem to be going in one direction rather than reciprocally. Is there a possibility the other traded item(s) was perishable, like furs or food? Also would that be a general conclusion in archaeology these days, that the apparent one way movement of artifacts doesn't amount to trade? Best wishes
If perishable items were being traded we should still see the non-perishable stuff showing up outside its natural range other than Poverty Point itself.
And yes for it to be trade, people have to actually trade things. Material has to change hands in both directions.
Thanks Nathanael. Looking forward to your next video.
Glad I listened all the way to the end
There's some good stuff back there!
This was great! I would like to hear if there is any correlations with climate fluctuations with these sites. I live in Nebraska and I have become very interested on the rise and fall of the central plains tradition. I find it interesting that they disappeared so quickly.
Can you pls do a video on dating arrowheads / points / scrappers / tools
Absolutely intriguing...This interview presented a new way of looking at Poverty point for me. ..too often we want to insert our western models in interpreting. I wonder what the event was ..or what the series of events were... that brought so many to a single place. It was undoubtedly serious enough as many came considerable distances to contribute.. Loved the Burning Man analogy. Much to consider. Looking through fresh eyes.
Thanks Nathanael
Thank you so much for this video.
I cannot remember the source now, but I read where there was evidence of copper smelting at Poverty Point, and the copper matched copper sources found in Michigan. The implication was that copper ore was brought to PP for processing. Is there more information on that?
This is an unrelated question about something you might be able to help me with. I'm from extreme northern Appalachia, central Pennsylvania, and know almost nothing about the people who lived here over the centuries, pre Euros. Could you recommend a book or some place i could learn a bit about them, meaning any or all time periods?
Wow! Thank you both! Speaking of narratives, 1) is it still appropriate to see Cahokia as ground zero for the Mississippian culture exploding outward or should we start wondering if it is instead the culmination of it? 2) Is Poverty Point not essentially a foraging culture's urban site, like Aguada Fexix? If so, why are the Olmecs seen as the first urban culture on the northern continent?
So let me understand this brother, so all this history is theoretical correct? And who has the most to gain from these theories, and who decides what theories are excepted as fact vs fiction? Thanks
All history is theoretical, but these are hypotheses, and hypotheses are provisionally accepted as most probable when there is good preponderance of evidence. Basically we fight about it for a decade or so and then the dust settles and we see where the evidence and analysis points.
I found the part of the conversation on how indigenous peoples concept of “personhood” differs from ours in Western societies interesting and illuminating.I think we do have a different world view. It makes it all the more unfortunate that we in the western world are still in the process of accepting many individuals from other cultures as “persons.” We are so self confident in our ignorance.
And our ego ~
It looks similar to a Menora, Candelabra., from the air..... also: it looks like a picture of ancient waves, somewhat ...
Perhaps it was once a tribe of Israel...?
Israel? In Louisiana? 3500 years ago? I think not.
Please help me understand how the jasper owl beads from poverty point were created, i do some small stonework/jewellery and i'm hard pressed to figure it out using only hand tools.. Has anyone done experimental archaeology on them, I really need to know, it is keeping me awake at night.
I've seen a paper on this sometime in the past year, but I don't remember where. it involved sandstone abrasion and chert drills for the eyes.
@@NathanaelFosaaen thank you for replying. i have diverse sandstones and jasper in my locality of several colours and it is one of the hardest things around. I have tried searching neolithic jasper techniques, poverty point owls, working jasper with sandstone. No luck. i really want to make one! I so appreciate your knowledge and enjoy your content. Huge gratitude for your continuing efforts.
And i thought ancient greeks or Phoenicians built poverty point as a way station for their ships sailing up the misissippi river to the copper mines on isle royale! Well that is what the History channel said right? 😅
Definitely ancient Greeks kickin it at Poverty Point 😂
I thought the history channel said it was clearly Aliens 😂
Greetings from the BIG SKY.
Perhaps Poverty Point inspired Mesoamerica
Has anyone heard of the 3000+ year old stone Chinese sword found sticking out of a creek bank in north Georgia? It may be possible that ancient Chinese were in contact and inspired the beginnings of Native American civilization
Our moderator needs to prepare his questions and get the GUEST talking. What the Moderator is doing is a separate and a digression from the ‘cast’s focus. Moderator should look closer, get a better microphone kept close to moderator and talk less to pre-think his questions to avoid the “ums”. Great theme and choice of guests. Keep up the good work, but refine technique as you proceed.
This is a conversation between colleagues that I'm letting people outside the discipline observe. It's not an interview. When it's your channel you can run it how you like.
There are no non-hierarchal peoples, and I don't know what differentiates a "formal hierarchy."
Maybe archeology or anthropology have a different definition of hierarchy, its a word with interesting etymology and evolution, but there are many ways people have organized, all of them are hierarchical within a cohesive group or tribe. It's part of our pack instinct.
Also, egalitarian and hierarchy are not opposites. Maybe you're referring to something like class hierarchy, but hierarchy on general isn't anti-egalitarian.
Sup nerds, thanks
Hey there drunk 😂😂
Are you drunk yet 😂😂😂
This was interesting. I would say that Burning Man was probably not as accurate an analogy as the movement during the DAPL pipeline protest at Standing Rock (where my family is from), at Wounded Knee in1973 and some of the other standoffs in Canada (Oka, etc) where different tribes traveled to support each other. Burning Man takes place on Pyramid Lake Paiute tribal land but it attracts people like Neal Katyal who is as far from an Indigenous person as possible since he's advocated in front of SCOTUS on behalf of the Nestlé Corp right to use child slavery
Poverty Point was related to the mound building traditions that existed all along the western Gulf of Mexico . It’s not unique n that context
That's an interesting claim! What evidence do you have?
The evidence is the earth works themselves . New LiDAR evidence has revealed an immense amount of large earthworks on the Mexican coast of the gulf from around the same period. People move around and exchange ideas. That’s a fact. There is no way that no one knew about the amazing huge river to the north, and there is no way that people didn’t know that if you follow the coast south you come to a beautiful land inhabited by many mound building societies with amazing chocolate and obsidian and jade etc. @@NathanaelFosaaen
LiDAR can't give you a date. Which of these mounds in Mexico date to 6000 years ago? Which date to 3,500 years ago?
@@NathanaelFosaaenNumerous mounds along the Eastern Gulf were turned into motels, bars, ice cream stands. My best recollection is that most of the burial mounds are not too old (relatively lol).
Human remains, along with tools were found at a submerged site in Manasota - 'radio carbon dating' put it at 7000 yrs B.P.
There's another cool submerged site found along the ancient St Marks river channel feeding out into Appalachee Bay. Lots of lithic material & some bone tools(?) I think. The researchers said in their paper that one unpredictable problem was being bothered by bull sharks & hammerheads... 😅
The alcoholic arkiolagist
*promosm*
I’m just throwing my uneducated two cents in.poverty point you have massive land works built real quick you have one path blocked by water and artificial high places over looking housing .I think they were slavers the rows were for housing of the slaves .you had no product to trade with yet you had wealth from neighboring areas .you had mounds of smashed pottery .it sounds like raiders capturing tribes from around the area .you have legends of tribe of boogey men living deep in the forest .All this sounds like pre anastazi folk come up from Central America causing havoc . I bet you their is cannibalism remnants their waiting to be found .i know I have an over active imagination but it fits better than a tribe that just shows up and ban instant new culture .my opinion
Items are probably being left there for spiritual reasons!
What makes you say that?
@@NathanaelFosaaenthat’s academic speak for “we don’t know”
How far north did poverty point people live
I'm an (old) English immigrant to Spain and now use the net more to keep up to date. I still get Current Archaeology and Current World Archaeology magazines from the UK. The latter has had several articles about pre European civilisations in the US and am amazed how little they seem to be known. It is such a shame so much has been lost over the years. Much like everywhere. Eg. Our own Hadrian's wall has been used by local farmers as a ready made builders supplies yard for centuries. 🫣
Pleased to have found you.
Welcome to the channel! I've got a video that's just book recommendations for American archaeology that might be useful for you.