The United States today nominated a complex of prehistoric earthworks for inclusion on the World Heritage List, a designation bestowed upon such marvels as the Taj Mahal, the Statue of Liberty and Stonehenge.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said United Nations recognition of northeast Louisiana's Poverty Point State Historic Site and National Monument in West Carroll Parish would attract more tourists to the 3,500-year-old site, which is tucked into a bayou of the Mississippi River.

"The Poverty Point earthworks are the remarkable legacy of a prehistoric hunter-gatherer society that existed thousands of years ago," Salazar said in a statement this afternoon.

The one-of-a-kind complex, which includes six concentric earthen ridges and is more than a half-mile wide, is considered one of the largest and most elaborate in North America, Interior said.

The nomination will undergo review by the World Heritage Centre staff and the International Council on Monuments and Sites. The World Heritage Committee, which is a rotating body of 21 nations, will then determine whether it warrants inclusion on the World Heritage List.

The list currently contains 21 U.S. sites, including the Grand Canyon, the Everglades and Mammoth Cave. Poverty Point would be Louisiana's first world heritage site.

Such a designation would not give the United Nations any management or ownership rights over the property.

The last U.S. site to be inscribed on the World Heritage List was the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii in 2010, and the most recent before that were the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park, both in 1995.