Poverty Point, Louisiana, North America. Native Americans build massive earthworks that testify to the existence of an advanced civilization on the lower Mississippi River, capable of long-distance trade, given the discovery of metal artifacts in an area devoid of metal deposits. There is a monumental enclosure covering an area of about 200 hectares with two enormous mounds and a sunken amphitheater. A million cubic meters of earth have been moved. People came here from the Great Lakes and Mexico. Some mounds form enormous bird figures. But they are not farmers, nor do they even use writing. They are hunters, fishermen, and foragers. It is a Stone Age site in a place where there are no stones. But people came here from thousands of kilometers away. Why? For knowledge. For the intellectual property of rituals, visions, songs, dances, and images: the exchange of complex information. The lack of an agricultural base doesn’t seem to have prevented the creation of small towns or something similar to them. Today, Poverty Point is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
