Nacoochee Mound

34°41′01″N 83°42′32″W / 34.6835°N 83.709°W / 34.6835; -83.709

The Nacoochee Mound (Smithsonian trinomial 9WH3) 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.

First occupied as early as 100-500 CE by Woodland culture people, the site was later developed and occupied more intensively from 1350 to 1600 CE by peoples of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture (a regional variation of the Mississippian culture). The latter people built a characteristic platform mound at this site, and evidence of related villages were found both east and west of the mound. A professional archeological excavation revealed a total of 75 human burials, with artifacts that support dating of the site.

The late 19th-century gazebo was installed on top of the mound in 1890 by a European-American owner of the land. After the mound was excavated, former governor Lamartine Griffin Hardman had a reconstruction of it built on his property south of Helen, Georgia.^{[citation needed]}

George Gustav Heye, sponsor of the original excavation in 1915, claimed that the historic Cherokee had inhabited the site, which was within their homelands. A 1955 historical marker on the site refers to such habitation. But, James B. Langford of The Coosawattee Foundation says that the excavation necessary to confirm such a claim has not been performed.

A 1734 land grant between Great Britain and the Cherokee lists Nacoochee (Cherokee: ᎾᎫᏥ, romanized: Nagutsi) as a town of Cherokee territory but does not describe its exact location.

The archeological site is part of the Sautee Valley Historic District. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 20, 1986 as reference number 86002742.

In the 1870s, the mound site was owned by Captain John H. Nichols, who reported plowing up stone box graves to the west of the mound. (These are now known to be typical artifacts of the Mississippian culture.) Charles C. Jones described the mound as being 16 feet (4.9 m) in height, in his 1873 report on Native American sites in Georgia. In 1890 Captain Nichols removed the top 2 feet (0.61 m) of the mound and built a gazebo on its new summit, a feature that became noted locally.