We know that men and women must have used other tools to obtain food, but we are unable to say which of the many other chipped and ground items were used in this way. Gathering plant foods such as nuts, acorns, seeds, fruits, berries, greens, and “vegetables” probably did not require implements, other than what may have been handy. Digging tubers would have required some sort of device, but it need not have been anything other than a convenient pointed stick. However, hoe-like tools have been found at several Poverty Point villages and in abundance at Terral Lewis, a small hamlet about 10 miles southeast of Poverty Point. Some of these objects have coatings which look like melted glass. The coatings are fused opal, produced when the “hoes” cut through sod. These artifacts might have been real hoes used to till gardens, but in view of the total absence of domesticated plant remains from Poverty Point sites, this function remains unconfirmed.
Foods were prepared with a variety of implements. Meat could have been cut up with the aid of heavy chipped bifaces (“cleavers”) and sharp flakes or blades (“knives”). Battered rocks, pitted stones, and mortars might have served to pound nuts, acorns, and seeds into flour and oil (Figure 9).
[Illustration: Figure 9. Ground Stone Tools. a-b, Abraders; c, Pitted Stone; d, Mortar. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]
Cooking was done over hearths and in earth ovens. The earth oven was an ingenious Poverty Point invention. Nothing more than a hole in the ground to which hot baked clay objects were added, the earth oven was an efficient heat-regulating and energy-conserving facility. Small objects of baked clay were used to heat these baking pits (Figure 10). These little objects were hand molded. Fingers, palms, and sometimes tools were used to fashion dozens of different styles. These objects are a distinguishing hallmark of Poverty Point culture. So common are they that archaeologists refer to them as Poverty Point objects.
[Illustration: Figure 10. Baked Clay Heating Objects. a, Cylindrical; b-c, Cross-Grooved; d, Biconical Grooved; e, Biconical Plain; f, Melon-Shaped. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]
Modern experiments in earth oven cooking have been conducted (Hunter 1975; Gibson 1975). It was discovered through these experiments that the shapes of clay objects used determined the intensity and duration of temperatures inside the pits. This might have been a way of regulating cooking conditions, just like setting the time and power level in modern microwave ovens. Another important aspect of earth oven cooking is that it would have conserved firewood, which must have been a precious commodity around long-occupied villages.
