Visitors to Poverty Point State Historic Site this weekend can get a firsthand look at how pre-historic people in one of the earliest settlements in North America lived and worked.

From 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, the park in Pioneer, La., will hold a demonstration about how Poverty Point’s inhabitants developed and created tools and other implements they used in their everyday lives, park officials said.

Programs will begin every hour on the hour, and admission to the park is $4, which includes the programs, access to the park’s museum, hiking trails and a tram tour.

About 3,500 years ago, inhabitants known today as Poverty Point People constructed a complex of semi-elliptical earthen ridges and mounts centered on a 35-acre flat plaza.

The site takes it names from a 19th century plantation near the earthworks.

No one is sure why the mounds were built or what purpose they served.

Archeologist have said the ridges might have been used to hold housing. As many as 2,500 people lived at Poverty Point around 1500 BCE at the hight of the civilization.

In June, the United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organization listed Poverty Point as a World Heritage Site. The designation means it is one of the most historically and culturally significant sites in the world. Other World Heritage Sites are the Great Wall of China, Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and the birthplace of Jesus.

Poverty Point is in West Carroll Parish, La., about 51 miles from Vicksburg. The park is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. For more information call 1-888-926-5492 or 926-5492.