Poverty Point Mound  (other US Sacred Sites)

Epps is notable for being the closest town to one of the oldest and largest Indian mound complexes in the United States, which is Poverty Point Mound.

Poverty Point Mound, near Epps, Louisiana. Long-beaked bird effigy mound
in lower right slightly below 6-ringed and partially octagonal mound.
Image © 2002 by Jon L. Gibson, Ph.D.

[ Editor's Note:  Science Frontiers reports: "The astounding complex of six octagonal ridges, 4,000 feet across, at Poverty Point, Louisiana, was not recognized until 1953, when aerial photographs were analyzed. Roughly 3,000 years old, the ridges are intersected by avenues that seem to align with summer and winter solstice points as well as some more obscure astronomical azimuths. These alignments represent remarkable astronomical sophistication for the New World in 1,000 B.C." ]

Poverty Point was built some time between 2,000 B. C. and 1,000 B. C., which would date it to what archaeologists call Archaic Time. It is a series of six concentric ridges of earthen walls about 5 to 10 feet tall that stretch out across the landscape for 3/4s of a mile and they create a partial octagon. The octagon would have been complete except for the fact that the river near there, called the Bayou Macon River, flows through the site. So, the rest of the octagon would have been on the other side of the river and was never constructed.

In the mounds with the six rows of concentric ridges, there are avenues inset into the ridges that separate the sections of the octagon. Two of the four existing avenues are solstice markers. One of the avenues seems to mark the setting of the star Canopus, which is the second brightest star in the sky visible from that Epps location.

One of the avenues seems to mark the setting of a star called Gamma Draconis, which is a second magnitude star that the ancient peoples used to use as sort of a nocturnal hour hand as the star swung around the pole star each night.  So the Poverty Point Mound has some astronomical alignments.

[ Editor's Note:  Gamma Draconis is an orange giant sun in the constellation Draco 148 light-years from Earth. Because it is near the zenith directly over London, it has been called "Zenith Star." ]

There are several other large mound constructions there, the largest of which is in the shape of a large bird effigy. Bird Effigy Mound is 640 feet along the wing, 710 feet head to tail and about 70 feet high. So that would put it at about the same height as the conical Miamisburg mound in Ohio – one of the largest conical mounds in the state of Ohio.  ~Linda Moulton Howe

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