Location | Biltmore Estate, North Carolina |
---|---|
Type | Platform mound |
Diameter | 30 meters (98 ft) |
Height | 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) (originally) |
History | |
Material | Earth |
Founded | 400-600 AD |
Cultures | Connestee people, Hopewell tradition |
Site notes | |
Discovered | 1984 |
The Biltmore Mound is a historical and archaeological site on the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.
The Biltmore Mound is a platform mound which was originally 2 meters tall and 30 meters in diameter. There are 62 postholes on the mound, [1] where ritual posts were once placed. [2] These posts were removed and the holes were filled with sediment before the mound was abandoned. [3] It originally served as a substructure wooden buildings used as civic or religious sites by nearby settlements. [4] These buildings may have included an earthen Great House, approximately 25 meters in diameter. [5] The site is very well preserved which makes it extremely valuable to archaeologists. It was encircled by a large village [3] which has also been excavated. [6]
The site was used during the Middle Woodland Period and is associated with the Connestee people, [7] ancestors of the Cherokee. [8] They are a place of importance in Cherokee historical memory. [5] Native American presence in the area dates to as early as 8,000 BC. [9]
The mound was built over an older settlement dating to about 300 AD. The beginning of the mound's construction is dated to between 400 and 550 AD. [1] It is one of the earliest mounds in the Appalachian Summit along with the similarly aged Garden Creek Mound, both of which are in the French Broad River watershed. The latest phase of construction occurred between 580 and 600 AD. [1] Nine distinct phases of occupation and use have been identified by archaeologists. [10] Towards the end of the period, a large ditch was dug around the mound. [2]
It is considered to be a part of the Hopewell tradition of Native American cultural networking. [2] Evidence of wide-reaching trade, including copper possibly from the Ohio River Valley and mica possibly from Macon County, has been found there. [9] The site was used intensively for ceremonial activity and communal feasting. [11] Numerous artifacts, including pottery, seashells, quartz crystals, minerals and metal items, have been found there. Large amounts of seeds and faunal remains were also deposited at the site, probably from feasting. [3]
The first modern archaeologist to report the site was David Warren who performed an archaeological survey of the Biltmore Estate in 1984. [5] Archaeologists from Appalachian State University began excavating the site in 2000. [9]
The Little Tennessee River is a 135-mile (217 km) tributary of the Tennessee River that flows through the Blue Ridge Mountains from Georgia, into North Carolina, and then into Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. It drains portions of three national forests— Chattahoochee, Nantahala, and Cherokee— and provides the southwestern boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The Swannanoa River flows through the Swannanoa Valley of the region of Western North Carolina, and is a major tributary to the French Broad River. Its headwaters arise in Black Mountain, North Carolina; however, it also has a major tributary near its headwaters: Flat Creek, which begins on the slopes of Mount Mitchell. The Swannanoa River ends at its confluence with the French Broad, now within the grounds of the 8,000-acre Biltmore Estate in Asheville.
Joara was a large Native American settlement, a regional chiefdom of the Mississippian culture, located in what is now Burke County, North Carolina, about 300 miles from the Atlantic coast in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Joara is notable as a significant archaeological and historic site, where Mississippian culture-era and European artifacts have been found, in addition to an earthwork platform mound and remains of a 16th-century Spanish fort.
Pisgah National Forest is a National Forest in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. It is administered by the United States Forest Service, part of the United States Department of Agriculture. The Pisgah National Forest is completely contained within the state of North Carolina. The forest is managed together with the other three North Carolina National Forests from common headquarters in Asheville, North Carolina. There are local ranger district offices located in Pisgah Forest, Mars Hill, and Nebo.
Cold Mountain falls in the mountain region of western North Carolina, United States. The mountain is one of the Great Balsam Mountains which are a part of the Blue Ridge Mountains within the Appalachian Mountains. Cold Mountain and the Shining Rock Wilderness surrounding it are part of Pisgah National Forest.
Nikwasi comes from the Cherokee word for "star", Ꮓꮘꮟ Noquisi (No-kwee-shee), and is the site of the Cherokee town which is first found in colonial records in the early 18th century, but is much older. The town covered about 100 acres (40 ha) on the floodplain of the Little Tennessee River. Franklin, North Carolina, was later developed by European Americans around this site.
The Bat Creek inscription is an inscribed stone tablet found by John W. Emmert on February 14, 1889. Emmert claimed to have found the tablet in Tipton Mound 3 during an excavation of Hopewell mounds in Loudon County, Tennessee. This excavation was part of a larger series of excavations that aimed to clarify the controversy regarding who is responsible for building the various mounds found in the Eastern United States.
The Nacoochee Mound 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.
Moorehead Circle was a triple woodhenge constructed about two millennia ago at the Fort Ancient Earthworks in the U.S. state of Ohio.
The archaeology of Iowa is the study of the buried remains of human culture within the U.S. state of Iowa from the earliest prehistoric through the late historic periods. When the American Indians first arrived in what is now Iowa more than 13,000 years ago, they were hunters and gatherers living in a Pleistocene glacial landscape. By the time European explorers visited Iowa, American Indians were largely settled farmers with complex economic, social, and political systems. This transformation happened gradually. During the Archaic period American Indians adapted to local environments and ecosystems, slowly becoming more sedentary as populations increased. More than 3,000 years ago, during the Late Archaic period, American Indians in Iowa began utilizing domesticated plants. The subsequent Woodland period saw an increase on the reliance on agriculture and social complexity, with increased use of mounds, ceramics, and specialized subsistence. During the Late Prehistoric period increased use of maize and social changes led to social flourishing and nucleated settlements. The arrival of European trade goods and diseases in the Protohistoric period led to dramatic population shifts and economic and social upheaval, with the arrival of new tribes and early European explorers and traders. During the Historical period European traders and American Indians in Iowa gave way to American settlers and Iowa was transformed into an agricultural state.
The Pisgah phase is an archaeological phase of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture in Southeast North America. It is associated with the Appalachian Summit area of southeastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, and northwestern South Carolina in what is now the United States.
The Valley River is a tributary of the Hiwassee River. It arises as a pair of springs in the Snowbird Mountains of Cherokee County, North Carolina and descends 2,960 feet (900 m) in elevation in approximately forty miles (64 km) to enter the Hiwassee embayment at present-day Murphy, North Carolina.
The Mann site is a Crab Orchard culture site located off Indian Mound Road in Mount Vernon, Posey County, Indiana. It was placed on the National Historic Register on October 1, 1974. Exotic ceramics and other artifacts found at the site reflect contact with Ohio Hopewell people, in addition to more distant peoples in the Southeast of the Swift Creek culture of the Georgia Piedmont and Gulf Coastal Plain.
Garden Creek site is an archaeological site located 24 miles (39 km) west of Asheville, North Carolina in Haywood County, on the south side of the Pigeon River and near the confluence of its tributary Garden Creek. It is near modern Canton and the Pisgah National Forest. The earliest human occupation at the site dates to 8000 BCE. The 12-acre site features remains of two villages (31Hw7) occupied first in the Woodland period and, most prominently, in the Pisgah phase associated with the South Appalachian Mississippian culture. A total of four earthwork mounds have been found at the site; three have been excavated.
The Summerour Mound site (9FO16) is an archaeological site located in Forsyth County, Georgia. It was formerly on a floodplain of the west bank of the Chattahoochee River in northern Georgia. It is now flooded under the Buford Reservoir, also known as Lake Lanier.
The Little Egypt site was an archaeological site located in Murray County, Georgia, near the junction of the Coosawattee River and Talking Rock Creek. The site originally had three platform mounds surrounding a plaza and a large village area. It was destroyed during the construction of the Dam of Carters Lake in 1972. It was situated between the Ridge and Valley and Piedmont sections of the state in a flood plain. Using Mississippian culture pottery found at the site archaeologists dated the site to the Middle and Late South Appalachian culture habitation from 1300 to 1600 CE during the Dallas, Lamar, and Mouse Creek phases.
The Chauga Mound (38OC1) is an archaeological site once located on the northern bank of the Tugaloo River, about 1,200 feet (370 m) north of the mouth of the Chauga River in present-day Oconee County, South Carolina. The earthen platform mound and former village site were inundated by creation of Lake Hartwell after construction of the Hartwell Dam on the Savannah River, which was completed in 1962.
Indian Mound Reserve is a public country park near the village of Cedarville, Ohio, United States. Named for two different earthworks within its bounds — the Williamson Mound and the Pollock Works — the park straddles Massies Creek as it flows through a small canyon.
Long Swamp Site is a 4-acre (16,000 m2) archaeological site in Cherokee County, Georgia, United States, on the north shore of the Etowah River near St Rt 372. The site consists of a South Appalachian Mississippian culture village with a palisade and a platform mound.
Bennie Carlton Keel is an American archaeologist who has made contributions to the foundational understanding of Cherokee archaeology and culture, North Carolina archaeology, and to the development of Americanist cultural resource management (CRM).