Good Day, God!
I love stumbling across an unknown time and place! And that happened this afternoon — when I intended to organize my office — but opened the current issue (July/August 2021) of Archaeology instead.
The place was all over the eastern portion of North America. The time was say, 9000 BC to 1000 BC. And the WHAT — was that supposed hunter gatherers created a complex 345 acre site at Poverty Point (Louisiana). Hunter gatherers are not supposed to have complex social systems.
But the Mound A was constructed in a three month period (estimated, of course). And it contains the equivalent of 31,000 dump truck loads. This was a feat that might have required 1,000 workers — plus those required to house and feed them. That would seem to require a complex social system so WOW!!! Old ideas, UPSET!
That is indeed interesting. But what captured my visceral interest were these Poverty Point Objects. I wanted them! I wanted to touch them. I wanted to hold them. To play with them. Maybe to wear them? And finally to MAKE them.
I rarely get that kind of a feeling from objects. And to connect with objects from a civilization 5,000 years ago was a joy! To discover that there even WAS such a civilization — that connected up to Michigan and over to the Atlantic coast of Florida — was a further joy.
As archaeologist Kenneth Sassaman said, ” if you presume in advance what you aren’t going to find, you may never find what is really there.” In fact, you probably never look.
So, God, I’m back to the importance of LOOKING . . . of being attentive . . . of being OPEN to other layers of reality.
Story teller,
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