Marksville
Sometime after 200 B.C., Indians of the highly influential Hopewell Culture, centered in Ohio and Illinois, sent representatives throughout the eastern United States. By at least the first century A.D., groups of Louisiana Indians had met these travelers and had learned about their culture. Hopewell people had powerful leaders who supervised a cult centered around lavish burial rituals. Leaders organized construction of large mounds in which certain high-status people were buried along with exquisitely crafted objects made of copper, stone, bone, shell, pottery, and rare minerals.
The Hopewell representatives may have been sent south in search of a valued raw material or may have been sent as “evangelists” whose mission it was to explain the virtues of Hopewell ceremonial life. Intentionally or not, they introduced some Louisiana Indians to Hopewell practices. The Louisiana manifestation of Hopewell life is called the Marksville Culture.
Marksville Site
The Marksville Site, in Avoyelles Parish, was the first scientifically excavated site of the Marksville Culture. Burial mounds at the site are encompassed by a horseshoe-shaped earthen embankment almost 3,000 feet long. The site is now a State Commemorative Area open to the public. A museum at the park houses an exhibit describing the site and the people who lived there.
Indians of the Marksville Culture began living in larger, more permanent settlements, building burial mounds, and making Hopewell-styled pottery, pipes, and ornaments. They most likely had leaders who directed craftsmen, organized community life, and officiated at burial ceremonies.
Burial rituals must have been a very important part of the Marksville Culture. Large mounds were constructed in several stages over many years. The first stage usually was a flat low platform approximately three feet high and 40 feet in diameter. Burial ceremonies were held months or perhaps years apart and those who had died between ceremonies were buried together. Some remains had been temporarily interred in other areas, so these were reburied along with primary burials, and even cremations.
A pit was dug into the mound surface, and sometimes lined with logs and matting. Human remains were placed in the pit with pottery, pipes, stone points, shells, asphaltum, quartz crystals, and other valuable objects. The bodies might be ornamented with jewelry such as copper beads, earspools, bracelets, and necklaces of shell, pearls, or stone. Occasionally, a dog was placed in the grave. The pit was filled with dirt. Later, other pits might be dug for another occasion or burials might be made by placing remains on the mound surface and covering them with a layer of earth. Eventually, more construction increased the overall size of the mound and shaped it into a dome.
The people buried in the mounds may have been high status individuals who lived in villages near the mounds, while ordinary people lived in scattered villages away from the ceremonial centers. Marksville Indians in the coastal areas lived far from the elaborate burial mounds, but they still practiced new styles of making pottery and other objects.
(¼ actual size)
The new Marksville pottery was made from local clay, but it was quite similar in shape and decoration to pottery of the Hopewell Culture in Illinois and Ohio. A typical Hopewell vessel would be a bowl three to six inches tall. The rim would have cross-hatched lines on the exterior at the top and the design on the rest of the pot would be outlined with bold lines cut in the clay. Quite often the designs were geometric shapes and stylized birds. The background would be textured by rocking or stamping a small, toothed tool across the wet clay. These decorated pots were made primarily for ceremonial uses.
The Marksville people also made other Hopewell-like objects including copper and stone jewelry, platform pipes and figurines. The pipes had relatively broad flat bases (platforms) approximately three inches long. At one end was a hole for a wooden or reed pipe stem and in the center was a bowl. Sometimes an animal figure was on the platform, with the bowl formed in the animal’s back. Animal and human figurines were also made. Most of these Hopewell-like objects were buried in mounds as religious or burial offerings.
Marksville: a-c, Vessel Rim Sherds; d, Clay Effigy Pipe; e, Copper Ear Spool; f, Asphaltum Effigy; g, Ceremonial Stone Point (½ actual size)
In contrast, Marksville people made most of their utilitarian objects the same way as Tchefuncte people before them. Marksville people hunted with atlatls, bolas and nets, and fished with hooks and line. They gathered wild plants and shellfish, and probably grew a few domesticated plants in small gardens. They stored food in pots and baskets, and cooked in pots.
It seems that despite the Hopewellian influence, much of the culture was unaffected by contact with the northerners. Through time, Hopewellian influence diminished. Louisiana Indians built fewer burial mounds, developed their own distinctive pottery, and began a new way of hunting.
