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 (1000 to 1450/1500 CE) associated with the South Appalachian Mississippian culture. A total of four earthwork mounds have been found at the site; three have been excavated.

One of the three Garden Creek Mounds (31Hw1-3) is believed to have been constructed by indigenous peoples during the Middle Woodland period, or Connestee phase (200 CE to 600 CE). Another, now mostly disappeared, is believed constructed after that. The third and largest was constructed last, in the Pisgah phase. (A fourth mound was discovered in this area in the early 21st century but it has not been excavated or dated.)

There were three periods of excavation at the site: in the late 1880s, 1915–1919, and 1965–1967. Most of the evidence discussed here about Mounds #1 and #2 and the village sites was derived during the third and most professional excavation, conducted by an archeological team associated with the Cherokee Project at the University of North Carolina. As noted, the earliest human occupation was dated to 8000 BCE.

The smaller earthen platform mound was constructed during the Middle Woodland era, by people living from 200 CE to 600 CE. They likely had some dwellings near the mound, but the more sizeable villages found did not develop until later.

The two villages located on the site were occupied from 600 CE to 1200 CE, first by Woodland period Hopewellian peoples, and later by people of the Pisgah phase of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture (about 1000 to 1200 CE).

Pisgah-phase artifacts found in Mound #1 and at the site "are widely thought to represent a continuum of cultural development through which historic Cherokee culture and communities took shape." This area was part of the historic Cherokee homelands in western North Carolina, as the region was later known. After being surveyed in the 1960s, the site was largely destroyed by development of residential housing.

The 12-acre (49,000 m²) site is located on the south side of the Pigeon River, near the confluence of its tributary Garden Creek. It includes remains of two permanent villages and three earthwork mounds which have been excavated. (A fourth mound was found at the site from field research here in the early 21st century.) The largest village, designated 31Hw7, was located on a terrace overlooking Garden Creek, a tributary of the Pigeon River. A smaller village with a conical earthwork mound is located nearby.

Mound #1 is designed Hw 8 or 31Hw1. Mound #2 is located 1,000 feet (300 m) to the west of the first, and numbered as Hw 7 or 31Hw2. The remains of Mound #3, known as Hw 3 or 31Hw3, is located on the site's south side. It was excavated in 1915 by a team of the Heye Foundation. Because they were not following modern protocols, important information about stratigraphy and provenance was lost. The mound was constructed prior to the Pisgah phase. By the 1960s, nothing remained of that mound.