Nacoochee Mound
34°41′01″N 83°42′32″W / 34.6835°N 83.709°W
South Appalachian Mississippian culture | |
Site notes | |
---|---|
Excavation dates | 1915, 2004 |
Archaeologists | Frederick Webb Hodge, George H. Pepper |
Architecture | |
Architectural styles | platform mound |
Architectural details | Number of temples: 1 |
Sautee Valley Historic District | |
NRHP reference No. | 86002742 |
Added to NRHP | August 20, 1986[1] |
The Nacoochee Mound (Smithsonian trinomial 9WH3) is an archaeological site on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in White County, in the northeast part of the U.S. state of Georgia. Georgia State Route 17 and Georgia State Route 75 have a junction near here.
First occupied as early as 100-500 CE by
The late 19th-century gazebo was installed on top of the mound in 1890 by a European-American owner of the land. After the mound was excavated, former governor Lamartine Griffin Hardman had a reconstruction of it built on his property south of Helen, Georgia.[citation needed]
George Gustav Heye, sponsor of the original excavation in 1915, claimed that the historic Cherokee had inhabited the site,[3] which was within their homelands. A 1955 historical marker on the site refers to such habitation. But, James B. Langford of The Coosawattee Foundation says that the excavation necessary to confirm such a claim has not been performed.[4]
A 1734 land grant between Great Britain and the Cherokee lists Nacoochee (Cherokee: ᎾᎫᏥ, romanized: Nagutsi) as a town of Cherokee territory but does not describe its exact location.[5]
The archeological site is part of the Sautee Valley Historic District. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 20, 1986 as reference number 86002742.[1]
Site description
In the 1870s, the mound site was owned by Captain John H. Nichols, who reported plowing up stone box graves to the west of the mound. (These are now known to be typical artifacts of the Mississippian culture.) Charles C. Jones described the mound as being 16 feet (4.9 m) in height, in his 1873 report on Native American sites in Georgia. In 1890 Captain Nichols removed the top 2 feet (0.61 m) of the mound and built a gazebo on its new summit, a feature that became noted locally.
The mound was formally excavated in 1915 by a team of archaeologists headed by
The Museum of the American Indian and Heye Foundation published the book by Heye, Hodge and Pepper about the excavation, The Nacoochee Mound in Georgia (1918), which included photographs.[3] The excavation showed two intervals of mound construction. It uncovered 75 human burials, including 56 adults, seven adolescents, and four children. Eight other bodies were too degraded for their ages to be determined.[6]
The burials were layered, dating from different time periods. About a third of the individuals were buried with artifacts indicative of social status, including hammered
Test excavations at the site in 2004 by the University of Georgia Archaeology Field School resulted in evidence that, combined with current knowledge and theory, enabled refinement of dating related to inhabitants of the site. Some 87 postholes were made around the village site, the first excavation at the village. It was first occupied during the Early Middle Woodland Cartersville Phase.
The village was revealed to have been most intensively occupied during the
Archaeological evidence suggests that Nacoochee Mound site, and a nearby mound site called the Eastwood Site (9Wh2), served as local administrative centers for associated villages in the late 15th century and early 16th centuries.[6] The village was not fully excavated.
James B. Langford suggests that it may have been occupied later than the period above. Nacoochee and Chota were noted as
A bronze state historical marker at the site, dated 1955, says that, according to legend, it is the "ancient Cherokee town of
The original Nacoochee Mound was partially excavated. Former Georgia governor Lamartine Griffin Hardman had a reconstruction of this mound built at his estate in the Nacoochee Valley in White County, two miles south of Helen. It still stands.
See also
References
- ^ a b "National Register of Historic Places". Archived from the original on 2012-08-03. Retrieved 2012-04-09.
- ^ "Southeastern Prehistory:Mississippian and Late Prehistoric Period". National Park Service. Retrieved 2012-04-10.
- ^ a b Heye, George G.; Hodge, Frederick W.; Pepper, George H. (1918). The Nacoochee Mound in Georgia. New York: Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation. Retrieved 2007-05-27.
- ^ a b c d Langford, James B. Jr. (2002-08-08). "Nacoochee Mound". The New Georgia Encyclopedia. The Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press. Retrieved 2012-04-10.
- JSTOR 27569468.
- ^ a b c d e Mark Williams (2004). "Nacoochee Revisited: The 2004 Project" (PDF). University of Georgia, Lamar Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-06-12.
- S2CID 163189952.
- JSTOR 40575817.
- ISBN 0-8130-1170-1.
Further reading
- George G. Heye, F. W. Hodge, and George H. Pepper, The Nacoochee Mound in Georgia (New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1918). Available scanned full text online at Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/nacoocheemoundin00heyeiala)
- Robert Wauchope, Archaeological Survey of Northern Georgia with a Test of Some Cultural Hypotheses (Salt Lake City: Society for American Archaeology, 1966).
External links
- Nacoochee Mound images, National Museum of the American Indian
- Folk Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia