Icehouse Bottom is a prehistoric
Native American site in
Monroe County, Tennessee
Monroe County is a county on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 46,250. Its county seat is Madisonville.
History
During the early part of the 18th century, the area around what is now ...
, located on the
Little Tennessee River
The Little Tennessee River is a 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 ...
in the southeastern United States. Native Americans were using the site as a semi-permanent hunting camp as early as 7500 BC, making it one of the oldest-known habitation areas in what is now the state of Tennessee. Analysis of the site's
Woodland period (1000 BC - 1000 AD) artifacts shows evidence of an extensive trade network that reached to indigenous peoples in Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio. This was later an area of known
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
settlements, the historic people encountered by Anglo-European settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Since 1979, the Icehouse Bottom site has been submerged by
Tellico Lake
Tellico Dam is a dam built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Loudon County, Tennessee, on the Little Tennessee River as part of the Tellico Project. Planning for a dam structure on the Little Tennessee was reported as early as 1936 b ...
, an impoundment of the
Little Tennessee River
The Little Tennessee River is a 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 ...
created by the construction of
Tellico Dam
Tellico Dam is a dam built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Loudon County, Tennessee, on the Little Tennessee River as part of the Tellico Project. Planning for a dam structure on the Little Tennessee was reported as early as 1936 but ...
. Excavations were conducted at the site in the early 1970s prior to dam construction, in anticipation of inundation. Tellico Lake was developed by and is managed by the
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
, and the shoreline immediately above the Icehouse Bottom site is part of the McGhee-Carson Unit of the Tellico Lake Wildlife Management Area, which is managed by the
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) is an independent state agency of the state of Tennessee with the mission of managing the state's fish and wildlife and their habitats, as well as responsibility for all wildlife-related law enforcem ...
.
Geographical setting
The Little Tennessee River enters Monroe County from the east, where it has sliced a gap between the
Great Smoky Mountains
The Great Smoky Mountains (, ''Equa Dutsusdu Dodalv'') are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge ...
and the
Unicoi Mountains
The Unicoi Mountains are a mountain range rising along the border between Tennessee and North Carolina in the southeastern United States. They are part of the Blue Ridge Mountain Province of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The Unicois are ...
. It winds westward for some before emptying into the
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other name ...
near
Lenoir City. Tellico Lake, created in 1979, covers the lower of the Little Tennessee and the lower of the
Tellico River
The Tellico River is a river in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. It rises in the westernmost mountains of North Carolina, and then flows through Monroe County, Tennessee, before joining the Little Tennessee ...
.
Icehouse Bottom is an archeological site of ancient human occupation that was located along the south bank of the Little Tennessee. Prior to construction of the dam and creation of Tellico Lake, this site was approximately above the mouth of the river at its confluence with the Tennessee River, and nearly above the river's confluence with the Tellico River. The site was located immediately downstream from the base of a steep hill known as Rockcrusher Bluff.
The McGhee-Carson Unit of the Tellico Lake Wildlife Management Area includes what was once the top of Rockcrusher Bluff. When Tellico Lake was filled and flooded the area, the bluff became a peninsula. The entrance to McGhee-Carson is located along Tennessee State Route 360 (Citico Road), a few miles south of the road's junction with
U.S. Route 411
U.S. Route 411 (US 411) is an alternate parallel-highway associated with US 11. US 411 extends for about from US 78 in Leeds, Alabama, to US 25W/ US 70 in Newport, Tennessee. US 411 travels through no ...
. Carson Road traverses the unit, ending abruptly at the lakeshore above what was once Icehouse Bottom.
Historical information
Although little historical information regarding Icehouse Bottom is available, numerous historical areas later developed within a two-mile (3-km) radius.
Fort Loudoun, a frontier fort built in 1756, was located about one mile to the north, and the
Tellico Blockhouse
The Tellico Blockhouse was an early American outpost located along the Little Tennessee River in what developed as Vonore, Monroe County, Tennessee. Completed in 1794, the blockhouse was a US military outpost that operated until 1807; the garrison ...
, a federal trading outpost built in 1794, was located slightly more than a mile to the northeast. The
Overhill Cherokee
Overhill Cherokee was the term for the Cherokee people located in their historic settlements in what is now the U.S. state of Tennessee in the Southeastern United States, on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains. This name was used by 1 ...
villages of
Tomotley
Tomotley (also known as Tamahli) is a prehistoric and historic Native American site along the lower Little Tennessee River in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Occupied as early as the Archaic period (8000 to 1000 BCE), ...
and
Toqua were located opposite Rockcrusher Bluff to the south. The Overhill village of
Tuskegee, which is best known as the birthplace of the Cherokee scholar
Sequoyah, was located almost immediately northwest of the Icehouse Bottom site.
In 1819, the Cherokee sold the Overhill territory south of the Little Tennessee River, which included all of what is now Monroe County, to the United States government. Shortly thereafter, an early settler known as "Pioneer" John McGhee purchased several thousand acres along the Little Tennessee River, including the Icehouse Bottom site. He developed some plantations in the area. By the early 1900s, the Icehouse Bottom site was within the boundaries of a
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
farm owned by John Carson. Carson's family owned the land when the Tennessee Valley Authority began buying property along the river for the creation of the Tellico Reservoir.
Although it is unclear how Icehouse Bottom got its name, historian
Carson Brewer wrote of a McGhee family story that recalled an "ice-house" located in the 1800s on their lands in the Little Tennessee Valley. According to Brewer, a hole about in circumference would be dug in winter, and ice would be cut from the river or a frozen stream, placed in the hole, and covered with sand. This preserved the ice through the following summer.
Archaeological work at Icehouse Bottom
In 1967, the Tennessee Valley Authority began construction on Tellico Dam at the mouth of the Little Tennessee; it purchased some along the river's shoreline. That same year, the University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology, under contract with the
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...
, began a survey of the valley to determine its archaeological resources and to select sites for excavation prior to inundation. Although project members initially were given two years before the dam was expected to become operational, litigation over environmental concerns pushed the dam's operational date to 1979.
This allowed for much more extensive archaeological work at the Little Tennessee Valley sites, which was important when their great age became known. Excavations were carried out at Icehouse Bottom in 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1977. The site's location in the river's flood plain meant that each heavy rain had added a fresh layer of earth to the site, making it easy to stratify.
Archaic period inhabitants
The 1969-1971 excavations uncovered the charred remains of numerous clay hearths situated along the river at Icehouse Bottom.
Radiocarbon dating has established the date of the earliest of these hearths at around 7500 BC, during the Early Archaic period (8000-6000 BC). This is one of the oldest-known semi-permanent habitation sites within the boundaries of present-day Tennessee. Some of these hearths still displayed impressions made by netting or basketry resting on the clay while it was still moist. Other Archaic-period artifacts uncovered at Icehouse Bottom include a unique type of Early Archaic bifurcate projectile point and Late Archaic (3000-1000 BC) netsinkers.
Throughout the Archaic period, Icehouse Bottom was likely used as a "base camp" and occupied by indigenous peoples on a seasonal or other semi-permanent basis. The camp consisted of several dozen dwellings that were built along several hundred feet along the river terrace. Rockcrusher Bluff contains various outcroppings of
chert
Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a ...
, which would have been sought for use in making tools and weapons. The early inhabitants of Icehouse Bottom had a diet primarily of white-tailed deer, black bear, acorns, and hickory nuts. They also hunted and ate smaller animals, including squirrel and rabbit.
Woodland period inhabitants
The Woodland-period (1000 BC-1000 AD) material recovered from Icehouse Bottom is notable primarily for the presence of
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
, an important crop cultivated by indigenous peoples, that dates to as early as 100 AD. Because maize could be grown and stored, it supported increases in population density and the development of centers with a variety of skilled artisans. The Woodland period materials also include non-local pottery sherds, attesting to the people being part of a large trading network. Pottery fragments uncovered at Icehouse Bottom show that the site's inhabitants were interacting with people of other Middle Woodland sites around the region, including the Hopewell people of
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. Woodland-period human burials and cremations have frequently been found in the Icehouse Bottom vicinity.
Icehouse Bottom may have been a manufacturing center of sorts during the Middle Woodland period. Sherds confirm a trade network that included not only the Hopewell centers, but also the Sylva and
Garden Creek areas of North Carolina, the McMahan Indian Mounds a few miles to the east in what is now
Sevierville
Sevierville ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Sevier County, Tennessee, located in eastern Tennessee. The population was 17,889 at the 2020 United States Census.
History
Native Americans of the Woodland period were among the first human ...
, and sites as far away as Georgia. Several sherds uncovered at the Hopewell site in Ohio were probably manufactured at Icehouse Bottom. Icehouse Bottom may have also served as a regional distribution center for
mica. The site appeared to have declined in use after the Middle Woodland period, although a few fragments indicative of the early
Mississippian period have been found.
[Stoltman,]
Icehouse Bottom and the Hopewell Connection
," (February 1999).
References
External links
— TWRA site
{{National Register of Historic Places
Archaic period in North America
Woodland period
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee
Pre-statehood history of Tennessee
Geography of Monroe County, Tennessee
National Register of Historic Places in Monroe County, Tennessee