Most of the other utensils and tools that Tchefuncte Indians used were very similar to those that Poverty Point Indians made. These included smoking pipes; stone, bone, and antler spear points; ground stone atlatl weights; mortars; bone fishhooks; clay cooking balls; and other butchering, hideworking, and woodworking tools. In contrast to Poverty Point Indians, the Tchefuncte Indians did not specialize in making stone beads, pendants, or microtools, and they did not usually import materials to make tools and ornaments. Although some innovations from the Poverty Point Culture were carried over, most Tchefuncte tools and most Tchefuncte settlement patterns resemble those of the Meso-Indians. The majority of the information about this era comes from coastal regions of the state. Archaeologists are not sure how Indians in the rest of Louisiana were living at this same time, but it is likely that their culture somewhat resembled that of the Tchefuncte Indians. 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. [Illustration: 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.