archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...
located on the
Coosa River
The Coosa River is a tributary of the Alabama River in the U.S. states of Alabama and Georgia. The river is about long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 27, 201 ...
in
Floyd County, Georgia
Floyd County is a county located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 98,584. The county seat is Rome.
Floyd County comprises the Rome, GA metropolitan statistical are ...
. It is one of 5 large contemporaneous village sites located in a section of the river. The site was a satellite village associated with the
Coosa chiefdom
The Coosa chiefdom was a powerful Native American paramount chiefdom in what are now Gordon and Murray counties in Georgia, in the United States.Little Egypt Site located upstream.
Site description
The site is a village located on the eastern bank of the Coosa River at Foster Bend and dating from the mid-sixteenth century. The village is basically square in layout ( in length on each side) and surrounded by a ditch and
palisade
A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a fence or defensive wall made from iron or wooden stakes, or tree trunks, and used as a defensive structure or enclosure. Palisades can form a stockade.
Etymology
''Palisade ...
on three sides and the Coosa River to the north. At the center of the town was a large
plaza
A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
, at the center of which was a post measuring almost in diameter at its base and probably to high. In between the plaza and the encircling palisade was a village area, with approximately 47 houses and a number of elevated
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American English, North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous ...
storage facilities.
The house structures were rectangular with rounded corners and dugout basin floors. These houses were built using single set-post constructions covered in
wattle and daub
Wattle and daub is a composite building method used for making walls and buildings, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung a ...
. They probably had peaked, thatched roofs and averaged about in area. The floors were dug into the ground to , and the earth removed from the holes was piled onto the outside walls of the house. The insides of the houses had four roof-support posts set in a central square. Smaller interior walls of wattle and daub walls separated the interior areas beyond the central square into work, storage and sleeping areas.
The entrance to these structures had low embanked walls, possibly designed to keep water, dirt and debris from washing into the dugout floors during rainy periods. The elevated corn cribs stood or so above ground level and would have been used to store food stuffs; they also created shaded areas for activities during the hot summer months. These two types of structures may represent summer and winter habitations, a situation known from ethnographic sources from the Southeast.
Often two or three winter houses and their accompanying summer open-air structures were arranged around a central courtyard area, indicating a larger household unit and possibly depicting an extended family situation. This arrangement was similar to the larger pattern of plaza and village layout.
Located inside the northeast quadrant of the plaza area (separated from the village area) were two special-use structures, probably used as public buildings. The first, labeled structure #17 by archaeologists, was square structure which measured on its sides and had benches inside. The remains of ten adult males were found buried beneath the floor of this structure. It was a probably a meeting or council house. The second, labeled structure #16, is smaller. Archaeologists have so far been unable to determine its exact function. Archaeologists estimate that between 277 to 517 people lived in the village.
As the site was inhabited for 50 years or less, no monumental
platform mound
Platform may refer to:
Technology
* Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run
* Platform game, a genre of video games
* Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models
* Weapons platform, a system or ...
s were constructed there. If occupation had lasted longer, succeeding generations of inhabitants may have erected these kinds of structures over the council house or structure #16, as was the pattern in many larger Mississippian culture sites occupied for longer periods of time.
Site history
The site was first inhabited during the first half of the sixteenth century when a half a dozen or so domestic structures were raised at the site. Over the next ten years as the town grew, the people delineated a defensive perimeter, plaza, and habitation zone. The site seems to have had a definite layout from its inception, a pattern followed by other similar settlements in the area. After about another 20 or 30 years the town was abandoned.
During this time period, the
Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto (; ; 1500 – 21 May, 1542) was a Spanish explorer and ''conquistador'' who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire ...
(1540) and the
Tristan de Luna
Tristan (Latin/ Brythonic: ''Drustanus''; cy, Trystan), also known as Tristram or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed ...
(1560) expeditions visited the area, and it is extremely likely that one of the expeditions visited the site. Many items of European manufacture, such as iron tools, were found during excavations of the site. It is not known for sure if the Spaniards were the reason for the site's abandonment. Examination of the numerous graves found at the site provided evidence that an
epidemic
An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time.
Epidemics of infectious ...
had the struck the population, although views on this in the archaeological community are divided.
Excavations
The site was excavated in 1974, 1992 and 1993 by David Hally of the
University of Georgia
, mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things."
, establ ...
and Patrick Garrow of
Shorter University
Shorter University is a private Baptist university in Rome, Georgia. It was founded in 1873 and offers undergraduate and graduate degrees through six colleges and schools. In addition Shorter operates the Robert H. Ledbetter College of Busines ...
in
Rome, Georgia
Rome is the largest city in and the county seat of Floyd County, Georgia, United States. Located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, it is the principal city of the Rome, Georgia, metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all ...
.
See also
*
Coosa chiefdom
The Coosa chiefdom was a powerful Native American paramount chiefdom in what are now Gordon and Murray counties in Georgia, in the United States.List of Mississippian sites
This is a list of Mississippian sites. The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, inland- Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 C ...