author
Jon L. Gibson
b. 1943
A leading archaeologist of the American South, he spent decades studying the ancient earthworks of Louisiana and the lower Mississippi Valley. His books help bring places like Poverty Point into focus for general readers as well as scholars.
1 Audiobook
Poverty Point: A Culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley
by Jon L. Gibson
About the author
Born in Louisiana in 1943, Jon L. Gibson built his career around the archaeology of the lower Mississippi Valley. He became known for long-running research into ancient mound sites and earthworks, especially Poverty Point and related Archaic-period landscapes.
His work has appeared in books including The Ancient Mounds of Poverty Point: Place of Rings and Archaic Earthworks of the Lower Mississippi Valley, and he also coedited Signs of Power: The Rise of Cultural Complexity in the Southeast. Publishers have described him as a professor of anthropology and director of the Center for Archaeological Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Gibson's writing stands out for connecting technical archaeological evidence with bigger questions about how early communities organized labor, trade, ritual, and landscape. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in 2014.