Research at Poverty Point World Heritage Site has uncovered new information about the historical land.

 Poverty Point, located in West Carroll Parish, is a complex of earthen mounds and C-shaped earthen ridges built some 3,700 to 3,100 years ago. 

Diana Greenlee, a station archeologist at Poverty Point and a ULM adjunct professor in the School of Sciences, said recent research shows the site is “much more complex than previously realized.”

Parts of Poverty Point’s  central Plaza were surveyed using a ground-penetrating radar. The radar found nearly 2,000 reflectors, which are objects or soil disturbances that reflect the radar signals.

The research is a joint project between ULM and Minnesota State University Moorhead, and was funded by a grant from the National Park Service.

Several of the identified reflectors were tested using a combination of soil coring, analyses of soil samples, and sieving for artifacts, and by lowering a geophysical sensor down the cored holes.

“Although more work remains to be done, the results show that the Plaza contains a number of distinct earthworks,” Greenlee said. “A subtle high spot in the Plaza, the West Plaza Rise, was not a natural rise, but a purposely elevated feature within the Plaza fill.”