732 Stone Fort Drive
Manchester, TN 37355
(931) 461-7676
Open 8am to Sunset, Everyday
Museum open 8am to 4:30pm
When the first European settlers arrived at Old Stone Fort in the 1800’s, they looked around at the earthen mounds and walls encircling nearly 50 acres of land on a plateau in eastern Tennessee. On all sides roared the Duck and Little Duck rivers, creating one beautiful waterfall after another, and cliffs formed formidable banks. Surely this place was once a fort! Could it have been built by buccaneers from Seville after their ships wrecked and they were forced inland? Maybe it was Vikings! Or possibly DeSoto’s men? Many intriguing and fanciful theories were flying about.
Historical observers in the early 19th century wrote about their visits and some drew maps. They stuck to the available facts and agreed that the site was created by prehistoric people, but which ones? And the age of the site and its use were much debated. It was at least a thousand years old, they said, probably a fort built by the Moundbuilders, but there was no evidence found of long-term domestic occupation such as pottery, refuse heaps or utensils. (Faulkner 2002). So, who built it, and why? And is the “fort” linked to other civilizations in North America?
Read along and I’ll guide you through this archaeological state park. We’ll talk about the beauty of the place, but also the features of the site and the historical significance that makes this park as one of a kind.
Let’s start with an explanation of this site versus other archeological sites. There are essentially two types of prehistoric earthen construction: burial mounds and earthen enclosures. Old Stone Fort falls into the category of earthen enclosures, which are essentially open spaces defined for some purpose, such as fortification or ceremonial use. There are many of these sites in the eastern US, and they are usually associated with a network of prehistoric societies reaching out from the Ohio River Valley. (Riordan 1998) But THIS site is the most complex hilltop enclosure found in the South, and one of the most stunning settings for an archaeological park around!
...Woodland sacred places were chosen with care...Proximity to streams, springs, caves, mountains, mineral outcrops, trails; an ability to monitor celestial events against a distinct horizon; and the location of other sacred places... Perhaps the most spectacularly sited of these Woodland sacred places is the Old Stone Fort in central Tennessee...
Our adventure begins with an overview of the park. Then, we’ll look at how the enclosure was built, and why.
First, the parking lot will take you to the visitor center/museum/gift shop overlooking the Duck River. From there, enter the park and enclosure which starts soon after on the trail. This part of the park is called the Eastern Gateway, and it is the enclosure’s original entrance. You are walking where prehistoric man did thousands of years ago! Go forward on the path, passing by two conical mounds on either side. Following the embankments as they veer left, you’ll reach the opening to an enormous open prairie. (Spoiler alert: this is a very important and special spot! Read on in the post to learn why.) If instead you choose to explore the entire site (and you should), take a right or left at the conical mounds. These will take you on a trail 1.4 miles long on the inside (or outside) of the enclosures, or you can leave the trail for more strenuous hiking on the southern end. Any way you walk or hike, you will be surrounded by the beauty of forest, rivers and three waterfalls – Step Falls, Blue Hole Falls, and Big Falls - and you’ll witness for yourself the astonishing size of the open plateau in the center of the Ancient Enclosure. There are also the remains of what were at one time the state’s largest paper mills, built here in 1879. If you like to camp, there is a campground with 50 campsites on the west side of the Duck River with a couple of miles of trails there as well.
In all, the park has 782 acres, dedicated to preserving, protecting and interpreting the Old Stone Fort, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is the first of two State Archaeological Parks in Tennessee (the other is Pinson Mounds), the only site of its kind preserved by the state, and one of the only hilltop enclosure sites preserved by state or federal agencies in the US!
Throughout the park you will notice that the embankments are approximately three to six feet high, around sixteen to thirty-two feet wide, and surround a great deal of the enclosure. In the north they run from the conical mounds to limestone bluffs on either side; on the eastern side they go south about halfway down the open plateau; and on the western side it covers the river to the Big Falls. Along the entire southern edge up towards the west it stretches over 1800 feet! (Yerka 2010) The embankments follow the lines of both rivers and the steep banks along the south, using the natural boundaries around them as their guides. A map drawn by Joseph Jones in 1876 shows that at one time the walls surrounded the entire enclosure, but modern man destroyed some of these areas before it became a park.
When Archaeologist C.H. Faulkner excavated the site in 1966, he noted that the mounds had an interior embankment of “undressed limestone and shale, capped with clay.” Faulkner speculated that construction of the embankments started with excavating a ditch, then creating the perimeter embankments and conical mounds, and then finally the interior parallel cul-de-sac embankments. (Faulkner 1968) New studies using GIS mapping show a possible semi-circular structure within the enclosure like structures found in the McFarland Middle Woodland site close by. EM surveys also found a prepared limestone surface that was probably a staging area for mound building materials, as well as buried gravel roads and stone mound components. Finally, radiocarbon dating established the age as Middle to Late-Middle Woodland period, or 80AD to 550 AD, and the site was used for around 500 years. (Akin 2016)
At last! We know who created the enclosure, and it wasn’t the Vikings (although that would be one heck of a story)! But what was it for? There are three types of function for enclosures: settlements, forts and sacred places. (Squier and Davis 1998) Since there was no evidence of habitation or military use, there could only be one answer: Old Stone Fort was a Middle Woodland construction, likely ceremonial, religious and/or social in function. (Connolly 1998, Faulkner 1996, Mainfort and Sullivan 1998, Riordan 1998, Weinberger 2006) Specifically, it is referred to as a Vacant Ceremonial Center site, where people came only for ceremonies and did not live there. (Faulkner 1968, Prufer 1964) In fact, the Woodland period is a time marked by an increase in ceremonialism and long-distance trade, so this makes sense.
The best guess as to who created and used the site were the McFarland and Owl Hollow communities, modifying the site over a period of time. There are similar Middle Woodland enclosures, especially in Fort Ancient, Ohio, but also in Stone Mountain, GA, Pinson, TN, Louisiana, Florida and Kentucky. All of these sites share certain features, such as summer solstice alignments, parallel embankments, prominent bluffs and limestone pavements. (Connolly 1998, Faulkner 19868, Pearsall and Malone 1977) Interestingly, it is the sites in the Southeast that are the oldest. But Akin believes that for the people of the Upper Duck River, the main function was that of “cultural intensification,” meaning that once a year (or perhaps more) the people of the surrounding area would come together to celebrate their beliefs and cultural links with each other, and honor past and future generations. Social contracts were reinforced, and groups were bound together by their efforts to build sites like Old Stone Fort. These people didn’t spend a lot of time sharing trade goods with the other communities. Instead, they shared ideas and ways of expressing their religious beliefs, created alliances, and found marriage partners. (Akin 2016) Considering the distances between other ceremonial sites like Pinson Mounds or Stone Mountain or in Kentucky there was clearly a need to create a ritual and cultural center that would draw and serve the people in the eastern part of the state, and in fairly easy reach of other areas. I could not help but think, as I walked around the trail and onto the plateau, that this would have been one heck of a prehistoric Bonnaroo site, complete with tents, fires and all-night drum circles!
But for me there are two obvious reasons why this is a ceremonial site. First, the embankments are placed in very distinctive patterns in the area called the Eastern Gateway. This is the area that is just past the Museum, and as you walk up the path you notice something immediately: The trail does not follow straight through to the open plateau. The embankments angle forward then sharply left to the most important place of all: where the parallel earthworks are aligned within one degree of the summer solstice! (Pearsall and Malone 1991). So of course, this area was ceremonial in nature, but also a calendar of the changing of the seasons, a sacred time for early man. And every year you can sign up with the Old Stone Fort State Park to come see the rising of the sun on the summer solstice in this magical place for yourself!
We also have to consider the fact that water is the dominant feature of this Sacred Site. The rivers and waterfalls would have had great meaning to prehistoric people, symbolizing the cleansing and purifying aspects of nature, as well as the source of all life. Water always serves a ritual aspect even in today's American Indian ceremonies.
Interesting facts: In 1794, Major James Ore camped with the Nickajack Expedition military regiment in the ‘fort’ during the Cherokee-American wars when en route to the Chickamauga towns. The Chickamauga Cherokee Indians had been running raids against frontiersmen who had been encroaching onto their territory for decades, and it was coming to a head. The expedition won the day, and the “Last Battle of the Cherokee” would lead to the Treaty of Tellico, ceding East Tennessee to the United States. Also, Coffee County’s first court was held in the Old Stone Fort Tavern. It is safe to say that Old Stone Fort has been the heart of Coffee County for thousands of years, and the more we learn about its past the greater we feel its significance.
The Old Stone Fort Visitors Center and Museum is a great way to learn about the history, legends and archaeological finds of the site and its builders. Be sure to stop by and visit before you start your hike.
All told, the park covers around 800 acres of land, owned and managed by the Tennessee Division of State Parks and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
The other State Archaeological Park is Pinson Mounds. Click here to read about this incredible ceremonial site in Western Tennessee.
Directions: Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park is off US Hwy41 on the north side of Manchester. From I-24 turn southwest at the Highway 53 exit (exit 110) and follow the signs one and 1/2 miles to the entrance. Manchester is approximately one hour form both Nashville and Chattanooga. Also nearby are a number of other beautiful state parks and natural areas, such as Short Springs State Natural Area, South Cumberland State Park and Rock Island State Park.
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