Nacoochee Mound
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Nacoochee Mound is a prehistoric earthen mound on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in White County, in the northeast part of the U.S. state of Georgia, at the junction of Georgia Highways 17 and 75. Nacoochee is derived from the Cherokee word that means "evening star."
The mound was excavated beginning in 1915 by a team of archaeologists sponsored by the Heye Foundation and the Bureau of American Ethnology. The team included Frederick Webb Hodge and George H. Pepper. The excavation uncovered seventy-five human burials, including fifty-six adults, seven adolescents, four children, and eight bodies which were too degraded to be aged.[1] 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 copper and stone celts, conch shell beads and cups, and elaborate pottery. Some of the later burials included glass beads and sheet brass ornaments, indicating that these were intrusive burials of 17th century Europeans.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the area around the Nacoochee Mound, and a nearby mound site called Eastwood, served as local administrative centers in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, though there is evidence that the sites were occupied during the time of the inhabitation of the Etowah Indian Mounds, approximately three centuries earlier. An unexcavated village near the mound may be the village of Nacoochee or Chota, villages which were recorded during a 1715 expedition by Colonel George Chicken, and which appeared on maps until the mid-18th century. Members of the Cherokee tribe used the mound as the location of their townhouse, and for ceremonial rites, many years later.[1]
Collector George Gustav Heye wrote a book about the excavation, The Nacoochee mound in Georgia, with Hodge and Pepper, which was published in 1918.[2]
While the original Nacoochee Mound was partially excavated, a reconstruction exists on the estate of former Georgia governor Lamartine Griffin Hardman, in the Nacoochee Valley in White County, two miles south of Helen. The mound is part of the Sautee Valley Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historical Places in 1986.
A historical marker at the site claims it is the "ancient Cherokee town of Gauxule, visited by Hernando de Soto in 1540." Archaeology work in 2004 by the University of Georgia Archaeology Field School has resulted in evidence that the mound and town were not occupied by Cherokee in the 16th century, if at all. The site was shown to have been significant during the Woodland and Mississippian periods. Little evidence of Cherokee occupation was found.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ a b The Nacoochee Valley Indian Mound. Retrieved on 2007-05-27.
- ^ The Nacoochee mound in Georgia (1918). American Libraries. Internet Archive. Retrieved on 2007-05-27.
- ^ Nacoochee Revisited: The 2004 Project., Lamar Institute Reports
- Langford, James B., Jr. (August 8, 2002). Nacoochee Mound. The New Georgia Encyclopedia. The Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press. Retrieved on 2007-05-27.
