These were some of the major questions that surrounded Poverty Point. The lack of agreement on these issues created an aura of mystery and promoted the idea that Poverty Point was an enigma, or puzzle. When Poverty Point was not simply being ignored in discussions of Southeastern prehistory during the 1950s-1960s, it was usually portrayed as an unusual cultural complex that burst upon the Lower Mississippi Valley landscape, flourished for a while, and then disappeared leaving no trace among succeeding cultures. Time has begun to change these perceptions. Poverty Point is no longer regarded as a geographic or developmental irregularity. New research during the last three decades has shown that the Poverty Point way of life was not confined to the big town at the main site, but extended over a large region and encompassed many peoples. Even with increased knowledge, Poverty Point still remains exceptional; yet it is no longer regarded as being out of step with Native American cultural evolution or as a historical flower that blossomed before its time. There are still many unresolved questions about Poverty Point culture. In the following pages, we will explore these questions and our current state of knowledge in order to present a reasonable picture of life in the Lower Mississippi Valley during Poverty Point times. POVERTY POINT CULTURE: A DEFINITION Poverty Point culture was a widespread pattern of life followed by certain Indian peoples in the Lower Mississippi Valley between 2000 and 700 B.C. This general lifeway stretched roughly from a northerly point near the junction of the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers, (above the present-day town of Greenville, Mississippi) down the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf Coast (Figure 1). It covered parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, and its influences reached as far as Florida along the eastern coast and as far up valley as Tennessee and Missouri. One should not get the idea that Poverty Point peoples from one end of this large region to the other were exactly alike. They did not comprise a single body of kinfolks or a nation. They almost certainly spoke different languages. It is likely that Poverty Point peoples were divided into a number of socially, politically, and ethnically separate groups.