3 Poverty Point Cooking Balls ~ Northeastern Louisiana ~

Length: 2"

Description: These cooking balls are the distinguishing hallmark of this ancient culture, Poverty Point culture was a widespread pattern of life in the Lower Mississippi Valley between 2000 and 700 B.C. Though diverse in language and social structure, one commonality was a far-reaching system of trade and manufacture of artifacts, i.e., cooking balls.The cooking balls were a mixture of fired clay and silt, molded by hand into various shapes and sizes.Fingers, palms and sometimes crude tools were used to fashion them. As you hold one of these artifacts you're going back hundreds of centuries to connect with a now extinct culture.Cooking was done over hearths and earth ovens, which were the inventions of Poverty Point.. Nothing more than a hole in the ground to which the cooking balls were added, the earth ovens were efficient at regulating heat as food was cooked.Until a few years ago, Poverty Point was a major archaeological mystery.

Provenance: Found on private property with permission. Northern Louisiana.