Poverty Point Indians probably had a ruling class, perhaps with a chief, to direct earthwork construction and long-distance trade. The leadership also may have helped organize food collecting and hunting activities. People living at the regional center relied on hunting, fishing, and plant collecting to supply their food, just as Meso-Indians had. They may also have sown seeds of favorite wild plants in cleared garden areas. There are indications that the Poverty Point Indians grew pigweed, marsh elder, knotweed, lamb’s quarters and sunflowers using this cultivation technique. This gardening, though helpful, would not have been essential to feed the people in the rich natural environments where they lived. Poverty Point Indians continued to use the tools that Meso-Indians had used for hunting, collecting, and food preparation. They were likely, however, to get some of the stone for these tools through long-distance trade. The Neo-Indians also made new tools that were added to the Meso-Indian ones. They made oval-shaped stone plummets that were used as weights on bolas or nets. A bola could be flung so that it wrapped around the feet of wild game. Weighted nets could have trapped both fish and small game. Stone for the plummets used by Louisiana Indians was magnetite and hematite from Missouri and northern Arkansas. The Poverty Point Indians cooked their food in a new way. They made clay cooking balls that probably were used like charcoal briquettes for roasting and baking. They rolled clay in their hands, then squeezed or shaped it into one of many forms. These were dried and heated in a fire until hot, then up to 200 were placed in a roasting pit. The different shapes may simply indicate the maker’s design preference or may have controlled temperature and cooking time. Another change in food preparation was the introduction of stone, and later, pottery vessels. The stone cooking or storage bowls were made from steatite (soapstone), or less commonly from sandstone. Later in the period, the first Louisiana pottery vessels were made, and these probably were modeled after the earlier stone bowls. In addition to these practical goods, Indians of this period made many exotic ornamental objects including stone and clay figurines, beads, and pendants. The figurines were about 2.5 inches tall and represented seated females, but usually the heads were removed. This may indicate that the clay figurines were used in some kind of ceremony. The beads were made from copper and clay, as well as gems and other stones. Pendants, also made from clay and stone, were in the shape of birds, insects, miniature tools, and geometrical shapes. The Indians may have cut and drilled stones to make pendants and beads with small stone tools usually less than an inch in length. These tools, called microtools, were also used for cutting, scraping, sawing and engraving bone, antler, and wood.