Louisiana's Poverty Point earthworks named a UNESCO world heritage site

(Reuters) - UNESCO on Sunday designated the ancient monumental earthworks of Poverty Point, Louisiana, as a world heritage site, making it the 22nd such U.S. site alongside such landmarks as the Grand Canyon and Statue of Liberty, officials said.

It was one of seven sites around the world to be given the designation on Sunday by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization during a meeting in Qatar, with the others in Botswana, France, Israel and Italy and two locations in Turkey.



is located in the Lower Mississippi Valley and includes five mounds, six concentric semi-elliptical ridges separated by shallow depressions and a central plaza, the agency said. UNESCO said it was created and used for residential and ceremonial purposes by a society of hunter-fisher-gatherers between 3,700 and 3,100 B.C.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/23/us-usa-louisiana-unesco-idUSKBN0EY04620140623





Dating of the Watson Brake site in present-day Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, where eleven earthwork mounds were built beginning about 3500 BCE, shows it to be the earliest, dated mound complex in the Americas.[1] It was begun well before the construction of the pyramids in Egypt.

Next oldest is the Poverty Point Culture, which thrived from 2200 BCE- 700 BCE, during the late Archaic period in the Americas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_Point_culture





This is great news that saves it from new highways and development.