Poverty Point World Heritage Site – Part 1

June 17, 2022

The Poverty Point World Heritage Site is 16 miles from the Poverty Point State Park that we are staying in.

Today, Bruce drove us to the Poverty Point World Heritage Site. We passed corn fields and soy bean fields.

We pulled into the small parking lot and Bruce parked next to a tree in hopes of some shade.

As we were walking towards the range station, one of the rangers was walking towards us. He directed us around the archeology building so we could see a demonstration that Mark (another ranger) was in process of giving. We thought that sounded fun and walked around the building to find the demonstration.

Mark was demonstrating casting spears with atlatls to a family. He was allowing them to use the atlatl to throw the spears at a round hay bale. Mark was kind enough to go through the his demonstration for us and allow us to try our hand at using the atlatl to throw a spear at the hay bale.

We both did surprisingly well. Mark spent a good bit of time with us answering questions about the different atlatls that he had, about the weights on them, and the spears. He even demonstrated how the atlatl could be used from a kneeling position.

The atlatls are on the table on the right side. There are two spears on the table and several spears leaning against it.

Mark was very informative and fun. We really enjoyed trying our hand at throwing spears with the atlatl.

We then went over to the back of the ranger station and looked down the gully at the Bayou Macon

The rangers made it back to the station, so we headed inside. We watched a move about Poverty Point and then paid for entrance into the park.

Part 2 will be the pictures of the artifacts found in the area displayed in the museum/welcome center.