Navels of the earth: sedentism in early mound-building cultures in the Lower Mississippi Valley

Middle Archaic (7400-5100 BP) fisher-hunter-gatherers living alongside the Lower Mississippi River were not fully sedentary but still managed to build mound complexes of impressive dimensions. The Poverty Point earthwork, built rapidly sometime after :700 BP. was the work of a sedentary fisher-hunter-gatherer people, the Tamaroha. The colossal earthwork. the explosion of material culture. the far-reaching exchange and the swift accommodations to growing population were both cause and consequence of sedentism.