Ustanoli

Eyewitnesses who were never called to the witness stand

Between about 1585 and 1600 AD, something catastrophic happened in the Southern Highlands.  The effects are most notable in northwest Georgia, southeast Tennessee and the northwestern North Carolina Mountains.  A native population remained in the heartland of the Apalache “kingdom” in the north-central and northeast mountains of Georgia. In fact the large town of Ustanoli on an island in the Tugaloo River was not sacked and burned until after 1700.  It was eventually replaced by a Cherokee hamlet. All mound building stopped.  Some of the largest indigenous towns north of Mexico were suddenly abandoned.  Archeologists working in northwestern Georgia found a … Read more

Archaeological Research in the Southern Highlands

Between about 1585 and 1600 AD, something catastrophic happened in the Southern Highlands.  The effects are most notable in northwest Georgia, southeast Tennessee and the northwestern North Carolina Mountains.  A native population remained in the heartland of the Apalache “kingdom” in the north-central and northeast mountains of Georgia. In fact the large town of Ustanoli on an island in the Tugaloo River was not sacked and burned until after 1700.  It was eventually replaced by a Cherokee hamlet. All mound building stopped.  Some of the largest indigenous towns north of Mexico were suddenly abandoned.  Archeologists working in northwestern Georgia found … Read more

Who Really are the Cherokees?

1718 French Map of North America - Detail

In 1976, while writing his dissertation for a Ph.D. in Anthropology, Archaeologist Bennie Keel was under heavy pressure to state that the Cherokees had lived in western North Carolina for at least 1000 years. That was a new policy adopted by the State of North Carolina. What Keel did say was that only three probable Cherokee structures in North Carolina had produced radiocarbon dates before the 1720. Keel noted that there was a century long gap between the archaeological record of large towns with multi-roomed rectangular houses, large plazas and pyramidal platform mounds, and the small villages typical of the … Read more