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Southeastern Archaeology
ISSN: 0734-578X (Print) 2168-4723 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ysea20
REVISITING PLATFORM MOUNDS AND
TOWNHOUSES IN THE CHEROKEE HEARTLAND: A
COLLABORATIVE APPROACH
Benjamin A. Steere
To cite this article: Benjamin A. Steere (2015) REVISITING PLATFORM MOUNDS AND
TOWNHOUSES IN THE CHEROKEE HEARTLAND: A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH, Southeastern
Archaeology, 34:3, 196-219
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/2168472315Y.0000000001
Published online: 11 Jan 2015.
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REVISITING PLATFORM MOUNDS AND TOWNHOUSES IN THE
CHEROKEE HEARTLAND: A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH
BENJAMIN A. STEERE
Department of Anthropology, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC, USA
This article describes the development and initial results of the Western North Carolina Mounds and Towns Project,
a collaborative endeavor initiated by the Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the Eastern Band of Cherokee and
the Coweeta Long Term Ecological Research Program at the University of Georgia. The goal of this project is to
generate new information about the distribution of late prehistoric mounds and historic period townhouses in
western North Carolina. This ongoing research has produced updated location and chronological data for Mis-
sissippian period mounds and historic Cherokee townhouses, and led to the discovery of a possible location for the
Jasper Allen mound. Using these new data, I suggest that David Hally’s model for the territorial size of Mississip-
pian polities provides a useful framework for generating new research questions about social and political change in
western North Carolina. I also posit that the cultural practice of rebuilding townhouses in place and on top of Mis-
sissippian period platform mounds, a process that Christopher Rodning describes as “emplacement,”was common
across western North Carolina. In terms of broader impacts, this project contributes positively to the development
of indigenous archaeology in the Cherokee heartland.
KEYWORDS:Cherokee Archaeology, Regional Analysis, Indigenous Archaeology, Townhouses, Mounds
Prior to the late nineteenth century, the mountain
valleys of western North Carolina were marked by
dozens of platform mounds and townhouses built
by Cherokee and their ancestors (Dickens ;
Keel ; Kimball et al. ; Rodning ,
; Ward and Davis ). These monumental
structures are important places on the Cherokee
cultural landscape, but most have been damaged
by looting, development, and modern agriculture.
Additionally, while there has been excellent
research on individual late prehistoric sites in the
Cherokee heartland, such as the Coweeta Creek
site (Rodning ,), the Warren Wilson
site (Dickens ,; Moore ), the Bilt-
more Mound (Kimball et al. ,), and
the Garden Creek sites (Dickens ; Keel
; Wright ,), there have been
fewer attempts to understand changes in monu-
mental architecture and settlement patterns at
broader spatial and temporal scales (although
readers should see Dickens [], Moore
[], and Rudolph [] for early regional
syntheses and Ward and Davis [] for an over-
view). Important archaeological research has been
carried out in western North Carolina through
cultural resource management projects, but this
work is often overlooked as gray literature, and
is not incorporated into broader research frame-
works (e.g., Riggs and Shumate [] on the
Kituwah Mound and Benyshek et al. []ona
possible ceremonial Woodland period ditch on
the Qualla Boundary). As a result, basic questions
about the history of human settlement and the
built environment that are fairly well understood
in adjacent regions, such as eastern Tennessee
and northwest Georgia, remain to be answered
for western North Carolina (see Hally ;
King ; Schroedl :–; Sullivan
,).
Archaeologists working in western North Caro-
lina and the Eastern Band of Cherokee share a
common concern about the need for an improved
and expanded understanding of the archaeology
of the Cherokee heartland. In recent years, the
Eastern Band of Cherokee has collaborated with
archaeologists to develop projects aimed at under-
standing and preserving archaeological sites in the
Appalachian Summit region (Carroll ;
Cooper ; Riggs ). This collaboration is
representative of a broader movement referred to
as indigenous archaeology, which is perhaps
most concisely defined as archaeology done with,
by, for, and about indigenous communities (see
Cowell-Chapthaphonh et al. ; Croes ;
© Southeastern Archaeological Conference
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Riggs ; Watkins ; Wilcox ,).
Working with archaeologists, the Eastern Band
of Cherokee has taken an active role in developing
cultural resource management projects and aca-
demic research programs. Such projects make
broad contributions to archaeological knowledge
while also respecting traditional Cherokee beliefs
about the treatment of sacred places, graves, and
ceremonial objects, and contributing to the preser-
vation of Cherokee culture.
The Western North Carolina Mounds and
Towns Project, a collaborative archaeological
research project initiated by the Tribal Historic
Preservation Office of the Eastern Band of Chero-
kee (EBCI THPO) and the Coweeta Long Term
Ecological Research Program (LTER) at the Uni-
versity of Georgia, is one such effort. The
primary goal of this ongoing project is to create
a GIS map and database documenting all the late
prehistoric mound and townhouse sites in the
westernmost counties of North Carolina. This
research is one of only a few attempts to systema-
tically map the location of all the archaeologically
identified late prehistoric mounds and Cherokee
towns in the Cherokee heartland (see Dickens
; Gragson and Bolstad ).
This project uses a combination of archival
research, archaeological survey, and community
outreach to generate new information about
poorly understood mound and town sites in
western North Carolina. Important new findings
from this project include the identification of a
possible location for the Jasper Allen Mound, sup-
porting evidence for the relocation of the Watauga
Mound described by Bartram (), and refined
dates of occupation for the Notley Mound and
village site (CE). A database and GIS layer
containing spatial and chronological information
for confirmed and possible Woodland and
Mississippian period mounds and Cherokee town-
houses was constructed, and has been used to yield
new insight on regional-scale research questions.
This article describes the development and initial
results of the Western North Carolina Mounds
and Towns Project, focusing on the new infor-
mation generated for understanding the nature of
Mississippian period platform mounds and his-
toric period Cherokee townhouses in the study
area. I make two observations about the nature
of the built environment in the Cherokee heart-
land. First, I suggest that the distribution of Missis-
sippian period platform mounds in southwestern
North Carolina is broadly similar to the pattern
of platform mound spacing recorded in northern
Georgia. As a result, Hally’s(,) model
for the territorial size of Mississippian polities
may be a useful tool for generating new research
questions about Mississippian period settlement
in the region.
Second, I suggest that the cultural practice of
rebuilding townhouses in place and on top of Mis-
sissippian period platform mounds, a process that
Rodning (:,–) describes as
“emplacement,”may have been common across
southwestern North Carolina. Using the new evi-
dence marshaled for this project, I argue that
each of the three groups of eighteenth-century
Cherokee towns in southwestern North Carolina,
the Middle, Out, and Valley towns, may have been
“anchored”by at least one townhouse constructed
on top of a Mississippian period platform mound.
From this birds-eye view, it seems the process of
emplacement occurred not only at the scale of
the individual settlement, but at a broader,
regional scale.
MOUNDS AND TOWNHOUSES IN THE CHEROKEE
HEARTLAND
Western North Carolina is the ancestral homeland
of the Cherokee people. Today, about percent
of the , enrolled members of the Eastern
Band of Cherokee live on the Qualla Boundary,
an approximately , ha holding adjacent to
the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,
which includes the town of Cherokee, North Car-
olina (North Carolina Department of Adminis-
tration ). This roughly km
area
represents a small fraction of the approximately
, km
territory the Cherokees may have
controlled in the early s, based on archaeolo-
gical evidence, early written accounts, and Chero-
kee oral history (Duncan and Riggs :;
Finger :; Gragson and Bolstad :).
Population estimates for the size of the Cherokee
nation in the mid-to-late eighteenth century fall
around , people living in approximately
towns in South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina
and Tennessee (Duncan and Riggs :;
Gragson and Bolstad ; Smith ). The
members of today’s Eastern Band are descendants
of a group of approximately , Cherokees who
survived late eighteenth-century wars with Euro-
pean and American forces and multiple smallpox
epidemics, and then resisted removal in .By
the early twentieth century, these survivors had
established the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
as a federally recognized tribe and sovereign
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nation, with their lands held in trust by the federal
government (Duncan and Riggs :–;
Finger ).
The study area for this project (Figure )
includes the westernmost counties of North
Carolina, which were home to the Valley,
Middle, and Out Towns of the Cherokee in the
eighteenth century (Boulware :–; Smith
). The counties fall within the Southern
Blue Ridge Province of the Appalachian Moun-
tains (Fenneman :), and the terrain is
dominated by steep mountains, sharp ridge tops,
and narrow valleys. The major river drainages in
the study area, from east to west, are the French
Broad, Pigeon, Tuckasegee, Little Tennessee, and
Hiwassee rivers. This area is generally considered
to be the center of the Cherokee “heartland”(see
Gragson and Bolstad :), and it includes
the mother town of Kituwah, which, according
to oral tradition, is the Cherokee place of origin
(Mooney :).
Table provides a general chronology for the
late prehistoric and historic periods in the region.
In western North Carolina and the surrounding
Southern Appalachian region, mound building
began during the Middle Woodland period,
around A.D. (Keel ; Kimball et al.
). The best-documented Woodland period
mound sites in the Cherokee heartland include
the Connestee phase Mound No. (HW)at
the Garden Creek site (Keel ) and the Bilt-
more Mound (BN), located on the
grounds of the Biltmore Estate (Kimball et al.
,). Both of these mounds apparently
served as low platforms for ceremonial activities
and contain artifacts typically associated with
Middle Woodland period ceremonial and
exchange systems (Keel ; Kimball et al.
,; Wright ,).
During the Mississippian period (A.D. –
), indigenous people in western North Caro-
lina, following broader cultural and demographic
trends in the Southeast, began practicing intensive
maize agriculture and living throughout the year in
permanent, nucleated villages (Dickens ;
Rodning and Moore ; Smith ). These
practices are seen at sites associated with Pisgah
phase ceramics, like Warren Wilson and Garden
Creek, and Qualla phase ceramics, such as the
Nununyi Mound and village site (Greene ;
Rodning and Moore ). In nearby eastern Ten-
nessee, platform mounds replace burial mounds as
the principal form of monumental architecture
during the Late Woodland to Early Mississippian
transition, and mounds appear to become political
and economic centers (Hally and Mainfort
:; Schroedl :–; Schroedl et al.
:–; Sullivan ,a; Sullivan
and Koerner ).
In western North Carolina, Mississippian period
villages with platform mounds appear to have
been central places on the political, economic,
and cultural landscape, but they were not as
large or elaborate as mound sites in neighboring
regions (Hudson :–; Rodning and
Moore :–; Sullivan b). Large Mis-
sissippian period communities like Etowah,
Moundville, and Cahokia contained multiple plat-
form mounds, and these sites appear to have been
the administrative center of settlement systems
with two or more hierarchical levels of political
organization (Beck ; Hally ; King
; Knight ; Pauketat ). In contrast,
Mississippian period central places in western
North Carolina contained single platform mound
sites that appear to have served as political
centers for several surrounding communities.
Similar Mississippian polities are well documented
in nearby northern Georgia (Anderson ;
Hally ,).
By approximately A.D. and into the late
eighteenth century in western North Carolina,
townhouses replaced mounds as the primary
form of public architecture (Rodning ,
). Townhouses, large public buildings
measuring between and m in diameter,
were often rebuilt in place over time. This
process gradually formed a low mound and
created an elevated base for new townhouse con-
struction. In some cases, Cherokee communities
constructed townhouses on top of existing plat-
form mounds built centuries earlier.
The Cherokee townhouse at the Coweeta Creek
site (MA) is one of the best preserved and
archaeologically understood examples of these
structures (Rodning ,,). This
large public building had at least six successive
stages and was used from the s to the late
s (Rodning :). In contrast to platform
mounds, which literally and metaphorically elev-
ated the chief above other community members,
townhouses were public structures which likely
functioned as architectural symbols of the Chero-
kee town, emphasizing the importance of commu-
nity identity over individual leadership (Rodning
,).
During the historic period, a sacred fire was kept
burning in Cherokee townhouses, and once a year,
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all the hearths in the village were extinguished and
then ceremonially rekindled from this sacred fire
(Mooney :). Based on traditional Chero-
kee beliefs, sacred fires continue to burn at places
like Kituwah (Duncan and Riggs :–;
Mooney :). Cherokee legends also
suggest that mounds were the home of the
Nunnehi, immortal spirit buildings, and that
FIGURE . Study Area, the Eleven Westernmost Counties of North Carolina.
TABLE .CULTURAL CHRONOLOGY FOR WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA,ADAPTED FROM RODNING ().
Period Phase Start
date
End
date
Hiwassee Little
Tennessee
Tuckasegee Pigeon French
Broad
Historic Late Qualla A.D.
A.D.
XX X X
Protohistoric Middle Qualla A.D.
A.D.
XX X X
Mississippian Early Qualla A.D.
A.D.
XX X
Undefined
ceramic series
A.D.
A.D.
XX X
Late Pisgah A.D.
A.D.
XXX
Early Pisgah A.D.
A.D.
XXX
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mounds and townhouses are symbolically associ-
ated with mountains (Mooney :–;
Rodning ,). Thus, in addition to
serving as hubs for social and political activities,
townhouses created a link between the built
environment and sacred aspects of the natural
landscape.
Despite the obvious importance of these sites,
and despite a rich history of archaeological
research in the area, we still know relatively little
about many of the mounds and townhouses in
western North Carolina. As in other parts of the
Southeast, this is primarily the result of antiquar-
ian excavations in the late nineteenth century
and site destruction in the nineteenth and twenti-
eth centuries. A brief review of archaeological
research in the region illuminates this history,
and also points to several important and underuti-
lized documentary sources.
PREVIOUS ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN
WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA
The earliest archaeological investigations in
western North Carolina were carried out in the
late s and early s to collect artifacts for
the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia.
Mann S. Valentine and his sons, E. E. and
B. B. Valentine, directed expeditions in
Haywood, Jackson, Cherokee, and Swain coun-
ties, sometimes with the help of local residents
(Ward and Davis :–). The Valentines and
their associates “opened”the Peachtree Mound
(CE), the Garden Creek Mound No.
(HW), the Wells Mound (possibly HW),
the Jasper Allen Mound, the Kituwah Mound
(SW), the Nununyi Mound (SW), the Bird-
town Mound (SW), and the Cullowhee
Mound (JK). These activities were highly
destructive.
In the s the Smithsonian Institution
“moundbuilder expedition”identified approxi-
mately mounds in western North Carolina
(Thomas ,). The results of this work
were published in the annual reports of the
Bureau of American Ethnology (Thomas ,
) and also are mentioned in at least one
Peabody Museum report (Putnam ). These
reports were adequate for their time, but provide
little more than an approximate location for each
recorded mound and a brief description of the stra-
tigraphy and contents of excavated mounds.
Many of the mounds recorded in the Smithso-
nian reports were submitted by James Mooney.
While Mooney is most famous for his role as an
ethnographer, Thomas () credits him with
recording over two-thirds of the mounds in
western North Carolina. In addition to providing
written descriptions of mound locations,
Mooney mapped the locations of mounds and
other important Cherokee sites on a series of anno-
tated U.S.G.S. ′series quad maps. These
maps have been stabilized, scanned, and made
available online through the Smithsonian Insti-
tution’s website (http://siris-archives.si.edu,
keyword NAA MS ). In some cases
Mooney’s annotations include additional infor-
mation about mound locations, such as the
names of property owners. I georeferenced
Mooney’s maps in ArcGIS to create a data layer
that helps clarify some of Thomas’s vague location
descriptions.
In May of , Robert Dewar Wainwright, a
retired captain of the United States Marine
Corps and amateur archaeologist, carried out
surface collections and excavations at several
mound and village sites in western North Caro-
lina, including the Donnaha site (YD), the Cul-
lowhee Mound, the Andrews Mound, and the
Kituwah Mound (Wainwright ,a,
b). Wainwright published a written account
of his travels, “A Summer’s Archaeological
Research,”in an obscure journal, The Archaeolo-
gical Bulletin. Wainwright’s account has only
recently received scholarly attention, and it pro-
vides useful details about the Cullowhee,
Andrews, and Kituwah mounds (see Steere et al.
).
The next excavations in western North Carolina
were carried out in Haywood County by the
Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation
(Heye ). In , George Heye directed exca-
vations at the Garden Creek sites (HW,,,
and ) near Canton, North Carolina, and also
excavated a probable Woodland period mound
on the Singleton property (HW) near Bethel,
North Carolina (Heye ).
In , Charles O. Turbyfill, a Waynesville,
North Carolina native who assisted George Heye
with logistics in western North Carolina, comple-
tely excavated the Notley Mound (CE) (see
Wallace [:–] for a colorful and
candid interview with Turbyfill in the
New Yorker magazine). According to United
States Army surveyors who mapped the Notla
River valley just prior to Cherokee removal in
, the mound once stood approximately m
tall (United States Army ). Unfortunately,
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Turbyfill devotes only one paragraph to the exca-
vation of the Notley Mound in a short paper on
file at the National Museum of the American
Indian (Turbyfill ).
In and , the Smithsonian Institution,
in conjunction with the Civil Works Adminis-
tration, carried out extensive excavations at the
Peachtree Mound (CE) near Murphy, North
Carolina. The Peachtree Mound was completely
excavated, and Setzler and Jennings (:),
using the culture history terminology of the day,
concluded that the site “is a component in which
both Woodland and Mississippi traits occur
simultaneously.”
In the late s, Hiram S. Wilburn, a surveyor
and historian for the National Park Service,
mapped and photographed the Cullowhee
Mound (JK), the Garden Creek site
(HW), the Kituwah Mound (SWand ),
the Nikwasi Mound (MA), the Nununyi
Mound (SW), and the Watauga Mound
(MA) (archives on file at the University of
North Carolina Research Laboratories of Archae-
ology and the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park Visitors Center). Wilburn’s photographs,
maps, and notes provide a valuable snapshot of
these mound sites decades before they received
attention from professional archaeologists.
In the early s the University of North Car-
olina carried out extensive pedestrian surveys in
western North Carolina under the umbrella of
the Cherokee Project. The goal of the Cherokee
Project was to understand the development of
Cherokee culture through a study of the archaeo-
logical record in western North Carolina
(Dickens ; Keel ,). By the s,
these surveys and other fieldwork resulted in the
documentation over , archaeological sites in
western North Carolina (Keel :; Ward
and Davis :). The results of the Cherokee
Project were published in theses, dissertations,
books, and articles that became standard reference
texts and created the framework for our current
understanding of the archaeology of western
North Carolina (see Dickens ; Egloff ;
Holden ; Keel ).
More recent research on mounds in western
North Carolina has yielded new insight on individ-
ual sites and improved our understanding of the
archaeology of the region. Survey and testing at
the Nununyi, Birdtown, and Kituwah mounds
on the Qualla boundary suggest that the mound
sites were occupied during the Early to Middle
Qualla phases (Greene ,) Rodning’s
analyses of materials and records from the
Coweeta Creek site have improved our under-
standing of Cherokee townhouses and domestic
architecture (,), and his analyses of
pottery from Coweeta Creek have refined the
chronology for the Qualla ceramic series ().
Ongoing research at the Spikebuck Mound and
town site by Western Carolina University promises
to shed new light on the ceramic chronology in the
Hiwassee river drainage (Eastman ; Stout
). Research programs at the Biltmore
Mound (Kimball et al. ,) and the
Garden Creek site (Wright ,) are gener-
ating new data for understanding western North
Carolina’s place in the broader Hopewell Inter-
action Sphere during the Middle Woodland
period (ca. A.D. –).
METHODS AND INITIAL RESULTS
In addition to the historical problems of site
destruction, a major barrier to understanding the
prehistoric cultural landscape of western North
Carolina is the lack of a concerted effort to
compile all existing information about mound
and townhouse sites in a single location. This is a
general problem in archaeological research, and
is hardly unique to western North Carolina (see
Anderson and Sassaman :). While the
state site file contains an excellent database of
archaeological sites and current site reports for
the state, older records and finer scale data are
harder to find. Archival data and archaeological
records and collections are scattered across univer-
sities, state offices, and museums, and possible
mounds identified decades ago have not been
revisited. Many historical references to Cherokee
townhouses have not been cross-checked and
confirmed with archaeological evidence.
The first step in this project was to examine all
available archival sources for information about
mounds and town sites in western North Carolina
compile this information into a single database
containing accurate location data, archaeological
and historical documentation, and preservation
status for all the prehistoric and historic Cherokee
mound and town sites in western North Carolina.
This was completed in the summer of , with
the aid of archaeologists and historians from
across the state.
The database and GIS from this
project are on file with the EBCI THPO and the
Coweeta LTER.
Archival research suggested that while there
were only known archaeological sites
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containing mounds or townhouses officially
recorded on state site forms, there may have
been as many as mound and townhouse sites
in the study area (Steere ). This finding con-
trasts with the prevailing notion that there were
relatively few mound sites in the region, and that
fewer still could be identified archaeologically.
Following this archival research, archaeological
fieldwork was carried out in the winter of
and spring of . Initial reconnaissance
surveys were completed at of the sites to
determine which of the newly identified possible
mound sites contained archaeological evidence
for mound construction (the remaining sites were
inaccessible; most were on private property, and
a few were inundated by lakes). Mapping and
shovel test surveys were completed at of the
locations with the goal of defining unknown
or poorly understood site boundaries and generat-
ing ceramic samples for dating.
During the reconnaissance survey, our research
team visited possible mound sites, often
accompanied by local residents, archaeologists,
and historians. Site boundaries were defined by
the presence of artifacts, either recovered from
the surface in areas appropriate for pedestrian
survey, or from subsurface contexts in shovel
tests. In accordance with the research design
developed with the EBCI THPO, no invasive
subsurface testing took place directly on known
or possible mounds. Older ceramic collections
and new, systematic artifact collections were
analyzed to assign approximate dates of occu-
pation to sites.
The archaeological survey completed for this
project revealed that of the archaeological
sites identified through archival research lacked
reliable archaeological or historical evidence for
Woodland or Mississippian period mounds or
Cherokee townhouses. Of the remaining sites,
can be identified conclusively as containing
Woodland or Mississippian period mounds or
Cherokee townhouses. An additional sites rep-
resent possible mound and/or townhouse
locations, but further archival and archaeological
research will be necessary to verify their status.
The discussion that follows provides a brief
description of archaeologically confirmed
Mississippian period platform mound and Cher-
okee townhouse locations in the study area.
Table provides summary information for
these sites. The project also produced new infor-
mation about archaeologically confirmed
Woodland period mounds, but they are not
discussed here. Interested readers can refer to a
technical report (Steere ) and a forthcoming
book chapter (Steere ) for details on the
other confirmed and possible mound sites ident-
ified by this project.
MISSISSIPPIAN PERIOD MOUNDS AND CHEROKEE
TOWNHOUSES IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA
The archaeological and historical data gathered
for this study suggest that at least seven mounds
in the study area are Mississippian period platform
mounds. These platforms mounds include: the
Peachtree (CE) and Notley (CE) mounds
in the Hiwassee River drainage, the Nikwasi
Mound (MA) on the Little Tennessee River,
the Jasper Allen Mound (in the vicinity of JK
), Kituwah Mound (SW), and the
Nununyi Mound (SW) in the Oconaluftee
and Tuckasegee drainages, Garden Creek
Mound (HW) in the Pigeon River drainage,
and the Swannanoa Mound (no site designation)
in the French Broad River drainage near Asheville.
Historic records suggest that there are dozens of
archaeologically unrecorded Cherokee town-
houses in western North Carolina, each one
marking the location of the many named Middle,
Valley, and Out Towns (Duncan and Riggs
). At present, there are archaeologically
documented Cherokee townhouses in the study
area. These include four townhouses that appear
to have been constructed on top of earlier, Missis-
sippian period platform mounds: the Peachtree
Mound, the Nikwasi Mound, the Kituwah
Mound, and the Nununyi Mound. Based on our
current understanding of available archaeological
evidence, the remaining seven townhouses
appear to have been constructed during the six-
teenth century or later, and do not have clear evi-
dence of an underlying platform mound.
However, it should be noted that additional
archaeological research may reveal evidence for
earlier construction stages at some of these sites.
This group includes the Andrews Mound
(CE) on the Valley River, the Spikebuck
Mound (CY) on the Hiwassee River, the Cul-
lowhee Mound (JK) in the Tuckasegee River
drainage, the Cowee (MA), Watauga
(MA), and Coweeta Creek (MA)
mounds along the Little Tennessee River, and the
Birdtown Mound (SW) on the Oconaluftee
River. Archaeological and historical evidence for
each of the mounds and townhouses is summar-
ized below.
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TABLE .SUMMARY INFORMATION FOR SITES DISCUSSED IN TEXT.
Name State site
number
Artifacts and
architectural features
L (m) W (m) H (m) Ceramic
phases
References
Andrews
Mound
CELarge mound
generally considered
to have represented a
Cherokee townhouse.
Qualla ceramics and
glass trade beads
found near mound
...Qualla Coe (),
Wainwright
(a:)
Birdtown SWRecovered artifacts
include glass beads,
Qualla and Pisgah
phase ceramics
(mostly Qualla), and a
razor. This is likely a
Cherokee townhouse
...Qualla Greene
(:),
Thomas
(:),
Ward (:)
Cowee MAHistorically recorded
Cherokee townhouse
...Qualla Bartram ()
Coweeta
Creek
MA At least six stages of
Cherokee townhouse
construction. Early,
Middle, and Late
Qualla ceramics
...Qualla Rodning ()
Cullowhee JKProbable townhouse
mound leveled in
. Artifacts
recovered during
destruction include
Qualla phase ceramics
Qualla Keel ()
Garden
Creek
Mound
HWStone mantle at base
of mound. Likely
represents an
earthlodge replaced
by platform mound
...Pisgah,
some
Qualla
Dickens
(:–),
Keel (:–
)
Jasper Allen JK Multiple fill zones and
layers of “burned
clay,”pottery,
charcoal, ash, burial
with conch shell and
human head effigy
bottle
...Pisgah,
some
Qualla
Osborne (),
Thomas
(:)
Kituwah SWCherokee townhouse
identified with
geophysical survey;
cedar posts, beads,
pottery, and Qualla
phase ceramics
recovered by
Valentines
..
.Qualla,
Pisgah
Riggs and
Shumate
(:–),
Thomas
(:)
Continued
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TABLE .CONTINUED.
Name State site
number
Artifacts and
architectural features
L (m) W (m) H (m) Ceramic
phases
References
Nikwasi MAHistorically recorded
Cherokee townhouse
built atop
Mississippian period
platform mound
...Qualla,
Pisgah
Tormey ()
Notley CELarge stone structure
in center of mound,
overlain by
subsequent
construction stage.
Pisgah and Qualla
phase ceramics
recovered from
mound fill. Turbyfill
records burials,
complete ceramic
vessels, pipes, copper
ear ornaments, and a
conch shell containing
the remains of an
infant
...Qualla,
Pisgah,
Lamar,
Etowah
Steere
(:–),
Turbyfill ()
Nununyi SWMostly Qualla and
some Pisgah phase
ceramics recovered by
Valentines. Stone
mantle at base of
mound. Burned
structure and burials
in mound
...Qualla,
Pisgah
Dickens
(:),
Greene
(:–),
Thomas
(:)
Peachtree CEThree mound stages: a
primary stage
including a stone and
wood structure
(possibly an earth
lodge), overlain with
two subsequent
construction stages.
Pisgah and Qualla
phase ceramics in
mound fill
...Qualla,
Pisgah
Setzler and
Jennings
(:)
Spikebuck CYQualla phase ceramics
and European trade
goods recovered in
excavations near
mound
...Qualla Eastman (),
Stout (),
Thomas
(:)
Swanannoa Unassigned Piled stone core or
mantle covered in
charcoal and dark
will. Projectile points
near base
...Unknown Thomas
(:)
Continued
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THE PEACHTREE MOUND (CE)
According to Setzler and Jennings (:–
), the Peachtree Mound contained a primary
mound with a rectangular structure made of
stones covered by at least two later construction
episodes. The mound measured .m( ft)
high and -×- m(-×- ft) at its base
when it was excavated in the early s (Setzler
and Jennings :). Dickens (:–)
suggests that the stone structure at Peachtree was
similar to the stone mantle found in the Pisgah
phase Garden Creek Mound , and may have rep-
resented the remains of an earthlodge. Dickens
also notes that while only a few Pisgah phase
sherds can be identified in the plates of Setzler
and Jennings report, most of the ceramic collec-
tions associated with the mound excavations can
be assigned to the Dallas and Pisgah phases.
The Peachtree Mound served as a platform for
the townhouse at Hiwassee, one of the most
important eighteenth-century Cherokee Valley
Towns (Duncan and Riggs :; Riggs
:). While the Smithsonian excavation at
Peachtree did not produce a clear map of the his-
toric Cherokee townhouse, a profile drawing of
the mound showing several distinct floors above
the “primary mound”and the quantity of Euro-
pean trade goods discovered in the mound
suggests the presence of a Cherokee townhouse
(Setzler and Jennings :, plates and ).
THE NOTLEY MOUND (CE)
According the Turbyfill’s() account, the
Notley Mound was .m( ft) high and
measured -×- m(-×- ft) at the base
when he and a small crew completely excavated
it. Like the Peachtree and Garden Creek mounds,
the Notley Mound contained a square structure
made of stones, as well as artifact and burial
associations consistent with Mississippian period
construction and use, including Pisgah phase jars
which were eventually curated at the Heye
Museum (Keel ).
In , our survey team carried out topo-
graphic mapping and a limited shovel test survey
in the habitation area surrounding the Notley
Mound. A low mound remnant measuring
-×- m at the base and approximately m
high is still present at CE, despite the long
history of excavation and landscape modification
at the site. Landowners indicate that Turbyfill
and his crew piled the mound fill from their exca-
vation back in the original location of the mound,
and that this new “mound”was leveled with a bull-
dozer in the s. Shovel tests excavated near the
mound remnant reveal a complex stratigraphy
that appears to include mound fill and midden
which have been excavated, redeposited, and
plowed. This fill is underlain by more uniform
strata which may contain intact cultural features
(Steere :–). A preliminary analysis of
the ceramics recovered from the shovel
tests suggests that CEcontains Late Wood-
land, Early Mississippian, Middle Mississippian,
and Late Mississippian occupations represented
by Napier, Etowah, Pisgah, Savannah, Lamar,
and Qualla phase ceramics.
THE NIKWASI MOUND (MA)
The Nikwasi Mound, located in downtown
Franklin, North Carolina, on the west side of the
Little Tennessee River, marks the site of the
eighteenth-century Cherokee town of Nikwasi
(Dickens ; McRae ). The townhouse
on top of the mound was used by Col. James
Grant as a field hospital during his campaign
against the Middle Towns (McRae :).
In the late nineteenth century, Thomas
(:) described the Nikwasi Mound as
“one of the largest and best preserved in the State
and on the site of the Old Nikwasi (Nequassee)
settlement.”In , Mooney sought permission
to excavate the mound but was denied access,
and the mound was not excavated by the Smithso-
nian (McRae :). Thus, unlike most of the
large mounds in western North Carolina,
Nikwasi has never been the subject of antiquarian
TABLE .CONTINUED.
Name State site
number
Artifacts and
architectural features
L (m) W (m) H (m) Ceramic
phases
References
Watauga MA Historically recorded
Cherokee townhouse.
Qualla phase ceramics
...Qualla Bartram (),
Benyshek
(), Steere
(:–)
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or professional excavations. There is no indication
that representatives of the Valentine Museum dug
into the mound. The only professional excavation
known to have taken place at Nikwasi is a single
-×-ft test pit excavated by UNC archaeologists
in to investigate damage caused by the place-
ment of a drainage ditch north of the mound
(Davis et al. :).
A ground penetrating radar survey of the mound
summit by Western Carolina University geologist
Blair Tormey suggests that the lower portion of
the mound is buried in –moffloodplain sedi-
ment and fill (Tormey ). Tormey’s study
also revealed evidence for multiple construction
stages and a dense cluster of objects near the
surface of the mound that may represent a town-
house (Tormey :–). These findings
support the interpretation of Nikwasi as a
mound originally constructed during the Missis-
sippian period, and then used as the base for an
historic Cherokee townhouse.
THE JASPER ALLEN MOUND
Osborne completely excavated the Jasper Allen
Mound for the Valentine Museum in December,
, and until now, its location has not been
known. In a letter to B. B. Valentine describing
the mound exploration, Osborne writes that the
mound is located on “Scots Creek miles north
of Webster,”on the farm of Jasper Allen.
Thomas (:) places the mound “on
Scott’s Creek, between the railroad and the
creek, about miles north of Sylva.”
Osborne’s narrative includes general infor-
mation about the characteristics and contents of
the mound. He states that he and a crew of five
workers excavated a trench ft (.m) long
and –ft (.–m) deep, ft (.m) from the
center of the mound, probably on the southeast
side of the mound. They encountered “different
layers of earth and clays, and some burnt clay as
we found in the McCombs Mound,”and also
pottery, charcoal, ash, and decayed bone
(Osborne ). Several days into their exca-
vation, Osborne and his crew encountered a
burial containing a conch shell and a painted
effigy bottle with images of four human heads.
The human head effigy bottle recovered from the
mound (curated at the Research Laboratories of
Archaeology at the University of North Carolina)
bears a strong resemblance to similar bottles
recovered from Dallas phase contexts in eastern
Tennessee (e.g., Polhemus :,figure
.). It is nearly identical to similar vessels
found in association with Level H burials in
Mound A at Toqua and with burials in the
Dallas Mound (Koerner et al. :–;
Lewis et al. ). Koerner et al. extrapolate the
use dates for Level H of the Toqua Mound as A.
D. – (:), and AMS dates for
the Dallas phase in eastern Tennessee fall in the
late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries (Sulli-
van ).
A human effigy head bottle from the Bell Field
site (MU) on the Coosawattee River in north-
west Georgia is also nearly identical to the vessel
from the Jasper Allen Mound and the Dallas
phase effigy vessel illustrated in Polhemus’s
report (:,figure .). Hally ()
dates the pottery collection from the mound at
Bell Field to the late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-
century Savannah phase. In sum, the effigy bottle
and other ceramic artifacts in the Jasper Allen col-
lection suggest a Pisgah or Qualla phase occu-
pation, perhaps dating to the late fourteenth to
early fifteenth centuries (see Davis et al. :,
).
Records of land sales on file at the Jackson
County register of deeds indicate that between
and ,D.J.(“Jasper”) Allen bought
and sold hundreds of acres of land on Scott’s
Creek. Most of his holdings appear to have been
situated north and east of Sylva and west and
south of the confluence of Scott’s Creek and
Carson’s Branch. The descriptions provided by
Osborne and Mooney and the available land
records indicate that Jasper Allen’s farm was
located on the north side of Scott’s Creek near
the confluence with Allen’s Branch. Descendants
of Jasper Allen interviewed by the principal inves-
tigator confirmed this location. Archaeological
survey on the north bank of Scott’s Creek revealed
that most of the terrain in the probable location of
the mound has been cut, filled, and graded for
commercial development. A very small (ca.
-×- m) site with Qualla phase and other uni-
dentified grit-tempered ceramics (JK)was
identified in this location during the survey
(Steere :). Site JK may represent a
portion of a much larger occupation late prehisto-
ric occupation area associated with the Jasper
Allen Mound.
THE KITUWAH MOUND
The Kituwah Mound is located on the west side
of the Tuckasegee River, approximately .km
west of the confluence with the Oconaluftee
River. According to Cherokee oral tradition, the
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mound marks the center of the first Cherokee
village, and the ancestral home of the Cherokee
people (Duncan and Riggs :–). Decades
of plowing have reduced the mound’s height to
approximately .m (Riggs and Shumate
:). Records from the Valentine excavations
indicate the mound was .m tall in the s.
Hiram Wilburn mapped and photographed the
Kituwah Mound in , and at that time the
mound was .m high, with a diameter of
approximately m.
According to Thomas (:), representa-
tives of the Valentine Museum dug into Kituwah
in the s. A series of letters written in
between historian Barbara Creel of Bryson City
and Virginia Gee of the Valentine Museum indi-
cates that the Valentine excavation uncovered a
red cedar post and four graves, interred with
their heads pointed toward the post. The Valen-
tines removed these burials, along with beads,
pottery, pipes, and other materials (Valentine
et al. ).
Archaeological survey and testing conducted at
Kituwah Mound and the surrounding village
make it one of the better understood mounds in
western North Carolina (Riggs and Shumate
). In , a shovel test survey defined the
limits of the site and identified archaeological com-
ponents, and a geophysical survey refined
our understanding of the site structure and the
nature of the mound (Riggs and Shumate ).
There is evidence for Early Archaic through his-
toric period occupation at the site. The geophysi-
cal survey reveals that despite decades of
plowing, there is still evidence for a ca. m diam-
eter townhouse with an intact central hearth at the
base of the mound, and a fourteenth- to
eighteenth-century Qualla phase plaza and
village near the mound (Riggs and Shumate
:–). According to Riggs and Shumate
(:), “the townhouse stage or stages indi-
cated by gradiometry likely represents a temple
destroyed at the midpoint of the uselife of the
mound, probably in the fifteenth or sixteenth
century.”
THE NUNUNYI MOUND
This mound is located on the east bank of the
Oconaluftee River, just below its confluence with
the Raven Fork River. Bartram (:)
referred to the site as Nuanha during his
visit to the region. The site appears on the
Hunter map and the Kitchin map as Newni
(Ward :). Historical documents suggest the
town was largely abandoned after (Greene
:).
Edward Valentine dug three trenches into the
Nununyi Mound in , and discovered the
burned floor of a structure covering graves
(Greene :). In their usual fashion, the
Valentines damaged the mound, but seem to
have left the village area intact. Dickens
(:) examined the field records and artifacts
from the Valentine expedition at the Nununyi
Mound, and suggested that at least one stage of
the mound was built during the Mississippian
period. According to Dickens (:), the
Valentines encountered a pile of stones at the base
of the mound (superficially similar to the one at
the Peachtree Mound). Dickens also notes that
of the ceramic sherds collected by
Edward Valentine from the Nununyi Mound
may date to the Pisgah phase (Dickens :).
This figure is noteworthy, although it should be
remembered that the Valentines’collections were
not systematic, and the high percentage of Pisgah
phase sherds may represent collector bias. The
presence of Pisgah phase ceramics and the stone
core suggest that mound was first constructed
during the Mississippian period.
Wilburn mapped and photographed the
Nununyi Mound in . He indicates that the
mound was ft (.m) in diameter and –
ft (.–.m) tall at the time. In , when
construction began for the “Cherokee Wonder-
land”amusement park, the village area east of
the mound was badly damaged by grading and
the excavation of a canal. In , a drainage
ditch was dug just east of the mound. Archaeolo-
gists from the University of North Carolina col-
lected artifacts from this ditch and recorded the
stratigraphy (Ward :).
In , Lance Greene carried out archaeologi-
cal testing on the . acre Crowe property south
and east of the mound. Greene (:–) col-
lected artifacts from a garden plot just south of the
base of the mound, dug shovel tests at m inter-
vals over the entire property, except the mound,
and excavated several -×-m square test units.
He concluded that the heaviest occupation of the
Crowe property dated to what he defined at the
time as the “early Qualla phase (A.D. –
).”
GARDEN CREEK MOUND
The Mississippian period mound at the Garden
Creek site is perhaps the best-documented
example of a Pisgah phase mound in western
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North Carolina. The mound measured approxi-
mately m east-west and m north-south,
with a height of m when it was excavated in
the s (Dickens :). In his reconstruction
of the mound construction sequence, Dickens
(:–) argues that the mound began as
two earth lodges placed side-by-side and con-
nected by entry trenches, with an adjacent rec-
tangular structure. After the earth lodges began
to deteriorate, they were surrounded by a layer
of boulders. The boulders were then covered
with midden soil from the village, almost to the
tops of the earth lodges. It appears that construc-
tion of a building began on this surface but col-
lapsed, and more fill was brought in to create a
level platform. Two structures, a palisade, and
burials were placed on this surface. Qualla cer-
amics were found around the mound during exca-
vations. Dickens (:) suggests that a Qualla
phase townhouse, destroyed by plowing, may
have been built above this Pisgah phase surface,
but this speculation has never been confirmed.
THE SWANNANOA MOUND
The Swannanoa Mound was recorded and exca-
vated in the late s by archaeologist J.W.
Emmert (Thomas :), but the site has
never been relocated. James Mooney places this
mound on the north bank of the Swannanoa
River, approximately .km southeast of Ashe-
ville on the U.S.G.S. ’series Asheville
quad map. This area has been heavily modified
by grading for residential and commercial
development.
Thomas (:) indicates that the mound
measured ft (.m) in diameter and ft
(.m) high, and was located less than m
from the river. Emmert apparently excavated a
trench into the mound, revealing a core of piled
stone, about ft (.m) in diameter and ft
(.m) high. The stone pile was covered in char-
coal and charred wood and then covered in dark
fill. There is no other discussion of stratigraphy,
suggesting the dark fill represents a single building
episode. Thomas claims the piled stone was not
placed in any particular order. No graves were
reported, and a few projectile points were collected
from the trench.
Based on Thomas’s description of a piled stone
core at the base of the mound, Dickens
(:–) suggested that the Swannanoa
Mound may have been constructed during the
Mississippian period. The Swannanoa Mound
has never been relocated; the late nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century records from the Bureau
of American Ethnology provide the only historical
and archaeological documentation for this
mound.
THE ANDREWS MOUND
This large mound was located on the east bank
of the Valley River in Andrews, North Carolina.
A National Historic Landmark application
authored by Joffre Coe, on file at the North Caro-
lina Office of State Archaeology, indicates that the
mound was mostly intact in . An inn was con-
structed on top of the mound in the first half of the
nineteenth century. This construction damaged the
mound but probably prevented it from being com-
pletely demolished. Coe () suggested that the
mound represented a Cherokee townhouse con-
structed and used from approximately A.D.
–. During a visit to the site in ,
R. D. Wainwright reported finding glass trade
beads, lithics, and pottery in a field near the
mound (Steere et al. :). He estimated that
the mound measured .ft (.m) long by
. ft (.m) wide and ft (.m) high,
and suggested that the mound was .m taller
before it was leveled for the construction of the
inn (Steere et al. :). The site was listed on
the National Register of Historic Places in ,
but the mound was bulldozed by the landowner
in to build a shopping center.
THE SPIKEBUCK MOUND
Located in Hayesville, near the confluence of
Town Creek and the Hiwassee River, this mound
is thought to represent the remains of the town-
house for the eighteenth-century Cherokee Valley
town of Quanassee, a prominent settlement with
a British factorage (Duncan and Riggs
:–). Thomas (:) recorded
the site as, “a large mound on McClure farm,
near Hayesville, on southwest bank of Hiwassee
River,”but it was not excavated by the Smithso-
nian. Today the mound measures approximately
m in diameter and .m in height.
The Spikebuck Mound and the associated Cher-
okee town have been the focus of professional
archaeological research since the s. Western
Carolina University conducted small-scale exca-
vations at the site from to , and again
under the direction of Anne Rogers, Jane Brown,
and Jane Eastman (Eastman ; Ward and
Davis :). The village site appears to have
been occupied from the sixteenth to the eighteenth
century, based on the appearance of Middle to
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Late Qualla ceramics and European trade goods
(Stout ).
THE CULLOWHEE OR ROGERS MOUND
This mound was located on the west side of the
Tuckasegee River, on the campus of Western Car-
olina University. Thomas (:), citing
Mooney as the reporter, describes JKas a
“mound on the east side of Cullowhee River, just
above its junction with the Tuckasegee,”and indi-
cates that the mound was excavated by the Valen-
tines. Mooney accurately places the mound in its
known location on his annotated U.S.G.S.
′series Cowee quad map. In an “account of
the opening of the Jasper Allen Mound,”
addressed to B. B. Valentine and dated December
,, A. J. Osborne provides a brief descrip-
tion of the exploration of Cullowhee Mound,
and indicates that he and his crew found “two or
three pots”in the mound.
A few photographs and maps were made of
JKprior to its destruction in . Wilburn
mapped and photographed the mound in ,
and indicated that it was only “foot high.”In a
one-page report entitled, “Destruction of the
Mound at Cullowhee, N.C.,”on file at Western
Carolina University, Keel () indicates that
the mound was destroyed to build recreational
grounds south of the mound. Features containing
pottery and bone were exposed as the mound
was leveled. The Research Laboratories of Archae-
ology of the University of North Carolina main-
tain ceramics from the Valentine excavation and
a small surface collection that Keel salvaged from
a pit at the bottom of the mound during a site
visit after the mound was destroyed. These collec-
tions primarily contain Qualla phase ceramics
(Davis et al. :). The low height of the
mound and presence of Qualla ceramics suggest
it was a Cherokee townhouse.
THE COWEE MOUND
Cowee was a Cherokee town famously docu-
mented by William Bartram during his visit to
North Carolina in . According to Bartram,
an artificial mound at Cowee served as a platform
for a townhouse. Bartram (:) writes, “the
council or town-house is a large rotunda, capable
of accommodating several hundred people; it
stands on the top of an ancient artificial mount
of earth, of about twenty feet perpendicular, and
the rotunda on the top of it being above thirty
feet more, gives the whole fabric an elevation of
about sixty feet from the common surface of the
ground.”The Cowee Mound is located on top of
a prominent hill overlooking the Little Tennessee
River, which helps account for Bartram’s descrip-
tion of the townhouse’s height.
Hiram Wilburn visited the Cowee Mound in
and produced a map and two photographs
of the site. He indicates that the mound measured
ft (.m) in diameter and ft (.m) high
at the time. Based on Bartram’s description and
Wilburn’s measurements, it seems likely that the
mound at Cowee represents a Cherokee town-
house with several construction stages, and
perhaps also the remains of a Mississippian
period platform mound.
THE WATAUGA MOUND
A low townhouse mound marks the site of the
Cherokee town of Watauga, a settlement visited
by Bartram during his travels through western
North Carolina in (Bartram :–
). For decades, MAwas considered to be
the location of the Watauga Mound. According
to a North Carolina Archaeological Survey Form
dated to ,MA, located on the west side
of the Little Tennessee River south of Porter’s
Dam, was reported by a local resident to have
been excavated by the Smithsonian “forty or
more years ago.”The site form places the
Watauga Mound on a low ridge overlooking the
river and characterizes the mound as “well
flattened,”and “ feet in diameter.”
Cultural resource management surveys suggest
that MA is a more likely location for the
Watauga Mound. This site is also located on a
hill on the west side of the Little Tennessee
River, but lies north and west of MA. Like
the Cowee Mound, which is located on a natural
topographic rise, the townhouse at Watauga
would have been elevated well above the sur-
rounding floodplain.
In a survey of a possible site for a new
school in the Iotla community, Joy (:)
noted that local residents have long known of a
mound at MA, and that the location of the
site more closely matches descriptions in historic
maps. Joy and her crew identified a possible town-
house mound at MA and performed shovel
testing at m intervals over the .ha project
area north and west of MA. According to
Joy (:), “of these shovel tests, (.
percent) yielded prehistoric ceramics and lithics
that are indicative of an historic (A.D. –
) Cherokee village. Artifacts are predomi-
nately Qualla ceramics.”Such an assemblage
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would be consistent with a village area associated
with the mound.
While surveying a nearby property in ,
archaeologist Tasha Benyshek also identified the
possible mound at MA (Benyshek ). In
, Benyshek and a team of volunteers made a
topographic map of the mound and carried out
a limited program of systematic shovel testing on
a m grid around the mound. A total of
shovel tests were excavated. Benyshek’s map indi-
cates that the mound is currently .m in height
and m in diameter. Her initial survey efforts
produced positive shovel tests in a roughly
m radius around the north, east, and west
sides of the mound.
Benyshek’sfieldwork revealed that the area in
the immediate vicinity of the mound has been
deeply plowed. Ceramics recovered near the
mound were primarily very small body sherds,
and in one shovel test the plow zone was cm
deep (Tasha Benyshek, personal communication
). The only clearly diagnostic sherds recov-
ered included one Pisgah style rim sherd and a
few complicated stamped body sherds that likely
date to the Qualla period.
In , our research team re-established Beny-
shek’s grid. We excavated additional shovel
tests on a systematic m grid east and west of
the mound. Forty-one of shovel tests excavated
in the site area during the survey produced prehis-
toric artifacts. As in the case of Benyshek’s survey,
the density of artifacts recovered from shovel tests
around the mound was low but consistent. Small
Qualla phase body sherds were the most
common artifact type recovered, consistent with
the pattern observed by Benyshek during her
survey (Steere :–).
THE COWEETA CREEK MOUND
The Coweeta Creek site is located on the west
bank of the Little Tennessee River, south of
Hickory Knoll Creek. The mound at the
Coweeta Creek site represents at least six succes-
sive stages of a large Cherokee townhouse dating
from the s to the early s (Rodning
:). The site was extensively excavated by
the University of North Carolina from to
as part of the Cherokee Project (Rodning
:). The low mound was the focal point of
a townhouse and plaza complex surrounded by
domestic structures (Rodning ,).
Rodning has analyzed and interpreted the cer-
amics (), architecture and community plan
(,; Sullivan and Rodning ,),
and graves (Rodning and Moore ) from the
site, making it one of the best understood and pub-
licized sites in western North Carolina.
THE BIRDTOWN MOUND
This mound (SW) and its associated village
area (SW) are located on the north side of
the Oconaluftee River near the confluence with
Goose Creek, in the Nick Bottom floodplain. The
site was excavated by the Valentines, who noted
that the mound was -×- ft (.-×-.m)
in diameter and ft (.m) high at the time of
their dig (Greene :). Thomas (:)
notes that the mound was “nearly obliterated”by
the Valentines. The Valentine excavation pro-
duced glass beads, a razor, stone and clay artifacts,
and five graves (Ward :). This supports the
interpretation of the mound as a Cherokee
townhouse.
In , Lance Greene carried out a systematic
surface collection and excavated three -×-m
square test units just south of the Birdtown
Mound. The surface collections primarily pro-
duced Qualla series ceramics (Greene ).
While Pisgah and Connestee series ceramics have
been found at the site, it appears that the Qualla
occupation was the most substantial (Greene
:; Ward :). Despite the history of
previous excavations and landscape modification
at Birdtown Mound, investigations indicate that
much of the mound and village site are still
intact (Epenshade ; Green ).
Four additional locations in western North Car-
olina contain possible archaeological evidence for
townhouses. There are unconfirmed accounts of a
looted mound at the site of the Western North
Carolina Regional Airport in Andrews, North
Carolina (Steere et al. :). James Mooney
reported possible mound sites on Sweetwater
Creek, in Robbinsville, North Carolina, and near
a train depot in Bryson City, North Carolina,
both of which may have represented townhouses
(Thomas :,). Finally, a cursory refer-
ence in a Valentine Museum artifact catalogue
suggests that agents of the museum may have
excavated a mound or townhouse in the general
vicinity of the eighteenth-century Cherokee town
of Stecoe (JK) near Whittier, North Carolina
(Valentine et al. ).
DISCUSSION
Given the preliminary nature of this study and the
lack of good chronological information for many
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of the mound sites, few archaeological interpret-
ations will be offered here. The primary aim of
this study is to organize, synthesize, and report
old and new information and lay the groundwork
for future research. Archaeological components
have only been assigned to the confirmed
mounds and townhouses, and in some cases
these designations are tentative and based on
limited data (e.g., reports from antiquarian exca-
vations). However, a few key points merit discus-
sion, even at this early stage of the project.
As Figure shows, platform mounds that
appear to date to the Mississippian period were
evenly distributed across the study area in four
spatial groupings, with one or two mound sites
each in the Pigeon, Tuckaseegee, Little Tennessee,
and Hiwassee River drainages. One mound group
may be represented by the Pisgah phase mound at
Garden Creek (and perhaps the poorly understood
Swannanoa Mound). A second may be rep-
resented by the Nununyi, Kituwah, and Jasper
Allen mounds in the Oconluftee and Tuckaseegee
drainages. The Nikwasi Mound and the Dillard
Mound in Dillard, Georgia (see Elliot ),
located on the Little Tennessee River, are km
apart, and may represent a third group. Finally,
the Peachtree and Notley mounds, located on
tributaries of the Hiwassee River, are located
km apart and could represent a fourth group.
This distribution is consistent with very general
expectations for Mississippian period settlement
patterns and is broadly similar to the pattern of
mound placement in nearby northern Georgia
(see Anderson ; Hally ,; Smith
,). Given this pattern of distribution,
Hally’s(,) model for territorial size of
Mississippian polities may serve as a useful frame-
work for understanding political and social organ-
ization in the region. This model, developed in
northern Georgia, has been applied fruitfully else-
where to improve our understanding of the Missis-
sippian world (e.g., Meyers [] on nearby
towns in eastern Tennessee). Even if Hally’s
model is not a perfect fit for western North Caro-
lina, it serves as a useful tool for analyzing settle-
ment patterns at a regional scale.
Hally (:) used ceramic dating and mound
stratigraphy to reconstruct the geography and
timing of mound construction and occupation in
northern Georgia during the Mississippian
period. Based on the assumption that Mississip-
pian platform mound sites serve as the capitals
of polities, Hally found that the minimum distance
separating neighboring, competing centers was
– km, that towns making up a chiefdom
were generally situated along a river floodplain
for a distance up to km from the mound
center, and that polities were separated by an
unpopulated buffer zone measuring between
and km (Hally :–). In a follow-up
study using least-cost-pathways in place of
straight-line distances, Livingood (:)
found that most contemporary mound centers
within the same polity in northern Georgia were
separated by no more than four hours in travel
time, and that competing centers were located
more than a hour walk away from one another.
At the moment, the lack of accurate dating pre-
cludes identifying the platform mound sites within
each of the four spatial groupings as contemporary
or not contemporary. For example, it is unclear to
what extent, if at all, the Mississippian period con-
struction and occupation of the mounds at
Kituwah, Nununyi, and Jasper Allen overlap.
Nor do we know if there were contemporary poli-
ties centered on the Notley and Nikwasi mounds.
As a result, it is not currently possible to use geo-
graphic or travel time distances separating
mound sites to identify polities. However,
Hally’s() model can be used to develop
future research.
Do any of the individual Mississippian period
platform mound sites in western North Carolina
represent primary and secondary centers in a hier-
archical, politically centralized polity, or do indi-
vidual mounds represent individual polities?
Given the lack of multiple mound sites, the rela-
tively great distances separating mound sites in
each of the four groupings (as much as –
km), and the mountainous terrain, which would
increase the travel time between mound centers,
the latter scenario seems more plausible. These
alternative models can be tested as we gain a
better understanding of the timing of occupation
at each of these sites through additional analyses
of available ceramic collections from mound sites.
While we lack a fine-scale understanding of the
occupation of the Mississippian period platform
mounds in the region, there is a clear shift in settle-
ment pattern associated with the transition from
platform mounds to townhouses. Figure shows
the distribution of confirmed and possible Chero-
kee townhouses. Based on historic records, we
know that the current archaeological sample of
eighteenth-century Cherokee townhouses is
incomplete. However, even this fragmentary
dataset suggests that townhouses were much
more closely spaced than Mississippian period
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platform mounds, and that there were many more
of them. We know from historic records that in
many cases townhouses less than km apart
served as centers for contemporary Cherokee
towns (Boulware ; Gragson and Bolstad
). This general change in the spacing of
central places may represent archaeological evi-
dence for a shift away from more hierarchical, pol-
itically centralized, multi-community polities in
the sixteenth century and the rise of more auton-
omous, independent, and egalitarian communities
by the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centu-
ries. Gaining a better understanding of the Late
Mississippian period chronology for the region
will help us gain a more nuanced understanding
of this shift.
Another pattern that merits further exploration
emerges when the locations of Mississippian
period platform mounds and Cherokee town-
houses are compared. Three of the spatial group-
ings of Mississippian period platform mounds
are located in the territories that would become
the well-defined town groups of the eighteenth-
century Cherokee. The Peachtree and Notley
mounds are located in the territory that would
become the Valley Towns, the Nunuyi, Kituwah,
and Jasper Allen mounds are located in the Out
Towns territory, and the Nikwasi and Dillard
mounds roughly mark the northern and southern
boundaries of the Middle Towns territory. If
these platform mounds represent the presence of
earlier, Mississippian period polities, then from a
regional, long-term perspective, it would appear
that the eighteenth-century Cherokee Valley,
Middle, and Out towns are built “on top”of
former Mississippian period polities, much in the
same way that Cherokee townhouses are thought
to have been constructed on the summits of Missis-
sippian period platform mounds at the Peachtree,
Nikwasi, Dillard, and Nununyi mounds. The pat-
terns observed here may provide regional-scale
archaeological support for the construction of
Cherokee identity as a process of “emplacement,”
by which “a community attaches itself to a particu-
lar place through formal settlement plans, archi-
tecture, burials, and other material additions to
FIGURE . Confirmed and Probable Mississippian Period Platform Mounds.
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the landscape”(Rodning :). For historic
period Cherokee societies, locations marked by
Mississippian platform mounds may have been
an important part of the cultural landscape, and
may have served as anchors for their groups of
towns. It is also noteworthy that two historically
recorded eighteenth-century Cherokee town-
houses, those at Cowee and Watauga, were built
on natural elevations high above the floodplain.
This may represent an attempt to use natural fea-
tures to recreate the process of building town-
houses on top of platform mounds.
In addition to providing important new archae-
ological information about the Cherokee heart-
land, this project can serve as an example for
positive collaborative research between archaeolo-
gists and indigenous communities in the service of
native interests (sensu Riggs ). A major cri-
tique of archaeological research, and one that
still applies today, even after the passage of the
Native American Graves Protection and Repatria-
tion Act (NAGPRA) is that archaeology is
something done to, not with, or for, indigenous
groups (Watkins :–). This project is
designed to use the tools of archaeology to give
something back to the Cherokee community, and
to serve as a catalyst for an increasingly collabora-
tive and engaged archaeology in the Cherokee
heartland.
The database from this project will serve as a
monitoring tool for the Cherokee THPO. Mound
and town sites, even those that have been badly
disturbed, have a high probability of containing
graves. With updated status and location infor-
mation for these sites, many of which are currently
“lost,”the THPO staff will be better equipped to
carry out their stewardship responsibility.
Furthermore, the results of this project expand
our understanding of the historical geography of
the Cherokee landscape. In presentations to Cher-
okee audiences at public events, the staff of the
Cherokee THPO and I have observed that most
members of the Cherokee community are inti-
mately familiar with the location and the
FIGURE . Archaeologically Identified Cherokee Townhouses in the Study Area.
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meaning of important sites on the Qualla Bound-
ary; sites like Kituwah, Nununyi, and Birdtown
mounds. However, members of the Eastern Band
are probably not as familiar with the names,
locations, and histories of important mound and
town sites outside the Qualla Boundary, especially
those mounds that were leveled by late nineteenth-
century expeditions. This narrower view of Cher-
okee historical geography is at once the result of
the violence and land cessions of centuries past
and of the destruction of important places by
development.
We have already begun to use the information
generated by this project for public outreach
efforts in the Cherokee community. In addition
to presenting the findings of this project in scho-
larly publications and professional conferences,
the staff of the THPO and I have presented the
results of our work at a community club meetings
in Cherokee and in other public venues, such as
libraries and community centers in neighboring
counties. We have shared the initial results of
our work with member of the Eastern Band at
the newly organized Cherokee Archaeology Sym-
posium in ,, and . This public
archaeology event, organized by the THPO and
held annually on the Qualla Boundary, provides
an opportunity for archaeologists working in
western North Carolina to share their work with
members of the Cherokee community.
At these public events, members of the Cherokee
community provide us with informal feedback and
suggestions for future research in question and
answer sessions after our presentations. Themes
that emerge in these discussions with Cherokee
community members include a concern with pre-
serving mound and town sites (and specifically,
the graves they contain), and a desire to use
archaeology as a tool for understanding Cherokee
culture and identity. These discussions will inform
future investigations of mounds and townhouses
in western North Carolina, and are laying the
groundwork for more formal community engage-
ment and collaborative research in the years to
come.
CONCLUSION
By relocating and studying poorly understood
mound and town sites, we can create a broader
reconstruction of the Cherokee world before
contact and removal. Mounds are a physical con-
nection to Cherokee cultural identity, material
reminders of past and present Cherokee lifeways
and traditions. Some mounds and townhouses
that were damaged by plowing, development,
and antiquarian explorations may still be partially
intact, and are still important places on the land-
scape. For archaeologists and stewards of Chero-
kee heritage alike, putting these places back on
the map is important work.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by a National Science Foun-
dation award DEB- from the Long Term Ecological
Research Program to the Coweeta LTER Program at the Uni-
versity of Georgia. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or
recommendations expressed in the material are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
National Science Foundation or the University of Georgia.
This research was also supported by grants and in-kind
support from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, the
Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the Eastern Band of
Cherokee Indians, the Duke Energy Foundation, TRC
Environmental Corporation, and the University of West
Georgia. This project was developed in close cooperation
with the Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the Eastern
Band of Cherokee Indians, and I would like to thank
Russell Townsend, Brian Burgess, Tyler Howe, Yolanda Sau-
nooke, Miranda Panther, Beau Carroll, and Johi Griffin for
their role in designing and supporting the research, public out-
reach, and preservation efforts of the Western North Carolina
Mounds and Towns Project. Russell Townsend’s support and
guidance were especially important. I also thank John Cham-
blee and Ted Gragson at the Coweeta Long Term Ecological
Research Program at the University of Georgia and Tasha
Benyshek and Paul Webb of TRC for their support of this
research. John Kesler of TRC helped direct and complete
the fieldwork in western North Carolina and, as always, his
skill and good humor made even the wettest, coldest days in
the field productive. The following individuals helped with
the archival and field research for this project, and provided
useful leads and insight: Linda Hall, Susan Myers, John
Mintz, Steve Claggett, and Dolores Hall of the North Caro-
lina Office of State Archaeology, John McDade and Erik
Kreusch of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,
T. J. Holland, Cultural Resources Manager for the EBCI,
Rodney Snedeker and Scott Ashcraft of the U. S. Forest
Service, Lorie Hansen of the Western North Carolina Rock
Art Project, Heather Olson, Mandy Terkhorn, Michael
Nelson, and Erin Grantham of TRC, Chris Rodning of
Tulane, Steve Davis, Vin Steponaitis, and Brett Riggs of the
Research Laboratories of Archaeology of the University of
North Carolina, Jason Love and Carol Harper of the CWT
LTER, David Hally and Mark Williams of the University of
Georgia, David Moore of Warren Wilson College, and Jane
Eastman, Anne Rogers, and Tom Belt of Western Carolina
University. Joelle Freeman, a graduate assistant for the
Coweeta LTER, helped me build the GIS layers for this
project and was instrumental in the project to georeference
the James Mooney maps. David Hally helped analyze the cer-
amics from the survey of CE. Jon Marcoux generously
provided artifact photographs and documents related to the
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Notley Mound. Tasha Benyshek, Chris Rodning, Paul Webb,
David Hally, Maureen Meyers, and one anonymous reviewer
read and commented on earlier versions of this paper; their
insightful feedback greatly improved this article. Any errors
herein are the responsibility of the author.
NOTES
Between June and August ,, the project director
traveled to the following locations to carry out archival
research and interviews: the Tribal Historic Preservation
Office (THPO) in Cherokee, the North Carolina Office of
State Archaeology (OSA) in Raleigh and the western
branch of the OSA in Asheville, the North Carolina State
Archives in Raleigh, the Research Laboratories of Archae-
ology at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC
RLA), Western Carolina University (WCU) in Cullowhee,
the archives of the National Park Service at the Great
Smoky Mountains National Park visitors center in Gatlin-
burg, Tennessee, the Franklin Press in Franklin, the North
Carolina Rooms of the Buncombe, Henderson, and
Haywood County libraries, the office of the register of
deeds in Buncombe, Henderson, and Jackson County,
and the Main Library and the Map Library at the Univer-
sity of Georgia. The results from the archival research for
this project are discussed in detail in reports of preliminary
research for the Western North Carolina Mound and
Towns Project (Steere ,). Background research
also was conducted using Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) available publically through county land
record websites and other sources, such as the North Car-
olina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) website
and the North Carolina State University GIS clearinghouse.
LIDAR data available through the NCDOT website were
especially useful for identifying and assessing possible
mound locations.
Surface collections of ceramics and other artifacts from sites
BN,CE,CE,CE,CE,CY,
GH,HW,JK,MA,MA,MA,
SW,SW, and SWwere examined at the
Research Laboratories of Archaeology at the University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. At the time of writing, all
artifacts collected during fieldwork for the Western North
Carolina Mounds and Towns Projects are curated at the
Antonio J. Waring, Jr. Laboratory of Archaeology at the
University of West Georgia.
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NOTE ON CONTRIBUTOR
Correspondence to: Benjamin A. Steere, Department of Anthropology, GA McKee, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee,
NC , USA. Email: bensteere@gmail.com.
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