Tomotley

Tomotley (also known as Tamahli) is a prehistoric and historic Native American site in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Occupied as early as the Archaic period, the Tomotley site had the most substantial periods of habitation during the Mississippian period, likely when the earthwork mounds were built, and later during the mid to late eighteenth century as a refugee village of Cherokee from the Lower, Middle and Valley towns.

The Tomotley site is now submerged by Tellico Lake, an impoundment of the Little Tennessee River managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The site is visible from Toqua Beach and the Toqua Boat Ramp, both of which are managed by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

Geographical setting

The Little Tennessee River traverses northern Monroe County for roughly 40 miles (64 km) between its Calderwood Lake impoundment near the Tennessee-North Carolina border and its mouth along the Tennessee River near Lenoir City. The impoundment of the river in 1979 by Tellico Dam created Tellico Lake, which covers the river's lower 33 miles (53 km) as well as the lower 22 miles (35 km) of its tributary, the Tellico River.^[1] The Tomotley site was situated along the south bank of the Little Tennessee just north of the river's confluence with Toqua Creek,^[2] nearly 22 miles (35 km) above the river's mouth along the Tennessee. The Overhill Cherokee village of Toqua and its associated prehistoric site was located on the south side of Toqua Creek, opposite Tomotley.

Toqua Beach and the Toqua Boat Ramp, which overlook the Tomotley site, are located along Tennessee State Route 360 (Citico Road), roughly 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the road's junction with U.S. Route 411 in Vonore.

Historical information

Tomotley, as it appeared on a 1756 map by William de Brahm (the river is on the right)

Etymology

The root of the name "Tomotley" is unknown, although it is generally believed to have originated before the Cherokee occupation. The ethnologist, James Mooney, suggested a possible Creek origin, pointing out the phonetic similarity to the Creek town of Tama'li, which was located on the Chattahoochee River in Georgia.^[3] Others have theorized that Tomotley was formed by Lower and Valley town refugees fleeing warfare with the Creek in the mid-18th century, noting that the town name also appears among Lower and Valley Cherokee towns in South Carolina and North Carolina.^[4]

Town history

Tomotley first appears in the European colonial historical record in 1756 under the governorship of Attakullakulla. That same year, a small English force under Captain Raymond Demeré arrived in the area to build and garrison Fort Loudoun. The garrison was greeted at Tomotley by Kanagatucko (Old Hop), who told Demeré, "I am now old and lie upon a bad bearskin. My life is not more than an inch long."^[5] William de Brahm, who designed the fort, resided at Tomotley while the fort was being constructed in late 1756.^[6]

Around this time, a sharp political rift occurred between pro-French and pro-English factions in the Cherokee hierarchy. When pro-French sentiments began to prevail in the key Overhill town of Great Tellico, its pro-English headman, Ostenaco, was forced to flee to the Little Tennessee Valley.^[7] By the time Henry Timberlake visited the Little Tennessee Valley on his peace mission in 1761, Ostenaco was governor of Tomotley (Attakullakulla was listed as governor of nearby Tuskegee and Mialoquo).^[8]

During the American Revolution and Cherokee–American wars, most of the Overhill towns were destroyed by American forces. Tomotley's location at a strategic ford along the Little Tennessee led to its being the first of the Overhill towns captured by William Christian's expedition in 1776.^[9] When John Sevier invaded the valley three years later, he reported that Tomotley was still in ruins.^[10]

Archaeological work at the Tomotley site

The now-submerged former site of Tomotley

The first major archaeological investigation at the Tomotley site was conducted by J.W. Emmert of the Smithsonian Institution in the 1880s. Emmert located two mounds at the site, one of which was 8 feet (2.4 m) high and had a diameter of 58 feet (18 m). Both contained human burials.^[11]

In anticipation of the inundation of the lower Little Tennessee Valley by the creation of Tellico Lake, the University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology (under contract with the National Park Service) surveyed the area in 1967. Test excavations were conducted at the Tomotley site that same year in an attempt to locate the historical village. As the Tellico Dam project stalled, the University of Tennessee was able to conduct more extensive excavations at Tomotley in 1973, 1974, and 1976. The excavations located 19 Cherokee and pre-Cherokee structures, including Tomotley's councilhouse, 18 human burials, and several thousand ceramic, stone, and bone artifacts.

While the site yielded evidence of Archaic and Woodland period occupation, excavation revealed that Tomotley's most substantial periods of habitation occurred during the Mississippian period (1000-1500 A.D.), when the mounds were built; and during the Overhill Cherokee period (18th century).^[12] Excavations also uncovered a number of Euro-American artifacts, some of which may have originated with the Fort Loudoun garrison.^[13]

Tomotley's Cherokee inhabitants

Prior to excavation, historians had thought that Tomotley was founded by refugees from the Cherokee Middle, Lower, or Valley towns when they fled warfare with the Creek and later the English, whose attacks destroyed their towns in the mid-18th century. The goals of the 1976 excavations were to shed light on this theory by determining the location and structure of Tomotley's councilhouse, analyzing Tomotley's Cherokee dwellings, and establishing the general layout of the village.^[14]

The dwellings uncovered at Tomotley provided some of the strongest evidence of non-Overhill occupation. Of the 19 structures uncovered at Tomotley, one was octagonal (the council-house), and the rest were either square or rectangular in shape. The lack of circular structures was inconsistent with historical accounts of Overhill Cherokee dwellings, which typically consisted of a circular ("winter") house and a rectangular ("summer") house. Archaeological investigations at Overhill sites such as Toqua, Chota, and Citico uncovered substantial evidence of circular structures.

But, circular structures were not common among Lower and Valley towns. Other evidence supporting occupation by refugees from these areas includes the ceramic material uncovered during the 1973-1974 excavations. The artifacts bore more similarities to Middle and Chickamauga Cherokee (Lower Cherokee) ceramics than to Overhill ceramics.^[15]

References

External links

• Frank H. McClung Museum
• Tellico Lake Wildlife Management Area — TWRA site

Mississippian and related cultures
List of Mississippian sites Mound builder (people) Timeline of Mississippi valley
Middle Mississippian	American Bottom and Upper Mississippi Aztalan Big Eddy Cahokia Monks Mound Mound 34 Mound 72 Woodhenge Cloverdale Dickson Mounds Emerald Mound and Village Emmons Cemetery Horseshoe Lake John Chapman Kuhn Station Larson Lunsford-Pulcher McCune Mitchell Orendorf Sleeth Steed-Kisker culture Sugarloaf Mound Lower Ohio River and Confluence area Adams Dogtooth Bend Kincaid Mounds Marshall Millstone Bluff Orr-Herl Rowlandton Mound Towosahgy Turk Twin Mounds Ware Wickliffe Mounds Middle Ohio River Angel Mounds Angel Phase Annis Mound Bone Bank Caborn-Welborn culture Ellerbusch Hovey Lake-Klein Hovey Lake District Murphy Prather Slack Farm Tolu Welborn Village Yankeetown Tennessee and Cumberland Backusburg Beasley Mounds Brentwood Library Brick Church Castalian Springs Dunbar Cave Fewkes Group Mound Bottom Riverview Mounds Archaeological Site Sellars Indian Mound Obion Mounds Old Town Swallow Bluff Island Mounds Central and Lower Mississippi Belle Meade Phase Boyd Mounds Campbell Chucalissa Eaker Menard-Hodges Murphy Mound Parkin Nodena Phase Nodena Site Tipton Phase Tunica Walls Phase
South Appalachian Mississippian	Adamson Mounds Site Avery Beaverdam Creek Bell Field Mound Bessemer Bussell Island Chauga Mound Chiaha Chota Citico Coosa chiefdom Dallas Phase Dyar Etowah Mounds Garden Creek Hoojah Branch Irene Jere Shine Joara Joe Bell King Lamar Lamar Phase Liddell Little Egypt Long Swamp Site Mabila Mandeville McMahan Moccasin Bend Moundville Mouse Creek Phase Mulberry Muscogee (Creek) Nacoochee Mound Nikwasi Ocmulgee Park Mound Pisgah Phase Punk Rock Shelter Rembert Mounds Roods Landing Rucker's Bottom Savannah Shiloh Sixtoe Mound Summerour Toqua Town Creek Indian Mound Waddells Mill Pond Wilbanks
Fort Walton culture	Anhaica Apalachee Apalachee Province Cayson Corbin-Tucker Fort Walton Mound Lake Jackson Mounds Leon-Jefferson Culture Letchworth Mounds Velda Mound Yon
Pensacola culture	Bottle Creek Indian Mounds Dauphin Island Fort Walton Mound Hickory Ridge Cemetery Naval Live Oaks Cemetery Pensacola people
Plaquemine Mississippian	Anna Emerald Mound Fitzhugh Mounds Flowery Mound Foster's Mound Ghost Site Mounds Grand Village of the Natchez Holly Bluff Jaketown Jordan Mounds Julice Mound Mangum Mazique Medora Mott Mounds Natchez Pocahontas Mounds Routh Mounds Scott Place Mounds Sims Taensa Transylvania Mounds Venable Mound Winterville
Caddoan Mississippian	Battle Mound Belcher Mound Bluffton Mound Caddo Caddoan Mounds Gahagan Mounds Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village Spiro Mounds
Upper Mississippian cultures	Oneota Beattie Park Mound Group Blood Run Hartley Fort State Preserve Roche-a-Cri Petroglyphs Fort Ancient culture Alligator Effigy Mound Clover Dodge Leo Petroglyph Serpent Mound SunWatch Indian Village
Culture	Artwork Emmons mask Long-nosed god maskette Mississippian copper plates Rogan plates Spiro plates Wulfing cache Mississippian culture pottery Mississippian stone statuary Shell gorget Languages Caddoan languages Central Algonquian languages Cherokee language Mobilian Jargon Muskogean languages Natchez language Siouan languages Timucua language Tunica language Yuchi language Religion Ballgame Black drink Ceremonial pipe Chunkey Earth/fertility cult Green Corn Ceremony Horned Serpent Platform mound Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Stone box grave Thunderbird Underwater panther
Related topics Chevron bead Clarksdale bell Maize Mill Creek chert de Soto Expedition

Pre-Columbian North America
Periods Lithic Archaic Formative Classic Post-Classic
Archaeological cultures	Adena Alachua Ancient Pueblo (Anasazi) Baytown Belle Glade Buttermilk Creek Complex Caborn-Welborn Calf Creek Caloosahatchee Clovis Coles Creek Deptford Folsom Fort Ancient Fort Walton Fremont Glacial Kame Glades Hohokam Hopewell List of Hopewell sites Leon-Jefferson Mississippian List of Mississippian sites Mogollon Monongahela Old Cordilleran Oneota Paleo-Arctic Paleo-Indians Patayan Plano Plaquemine Poverty Point Red Ocher Santa Rosa-Swift Creek St. Johns Steed-Kisker Tchefuncte Tocobaga Troyville
Archaeological sites	Angel Mounds Anzick Clovis burial Bandelier National Monument The Bluff Point Stoneworks Cahokia Casa Grande Chaco Canyon Coso Rock Art District Crystal River Archaeological State Park Eaker Effigy Mounds National Monument Etowah Indian Mounds Eva Folsom Site Fort Ancient Fort Center Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument Glenwood Grimes Point Holly Bluff Site Hopewell Culture National Historical Park Kimball Village Kincaid Mounds Kolomoki Mounds L'Anse aux Meadows Marksville Marmes Rockshelter Meadowcroft Rockshelter Mesa Verde Moaning Cavern Moorehead Circle Moundville Mummy Cave Nodena Site Ocmulgee National Monument Old Stone Fort Parkin Park Pinson Mounds Portsmouth Earthworks Poverty Point Pueblo Bonito Recapture Canyon Rock Eagle Rock Hawk Russell Cave National Monument Salmon Ruins Serpent Mound Spiro Mounds SunWatch Taos Pueblo Toltec Mounds Town Creek Indian Mound Turkey River Mounds Upward Sun River site West Oak Forest Earthlodge Winterville Wupatki National Monument
Human remains	Anzick-1 Arlington Springs Man Buhl Woman Kennewick Man La Brea Woman Leanderthal Lady Minnesota Woman Spirit Cave mummy
Miscellaneous	Black drink Ceremonial pipe Chunkey Clovis point Container Revolution Eastern Agricultural Complex Eden point Effigy mound Falcon dancer Folsom point Green Corn Ceremony Horned Serpent Kiva Medicine wheel Metallurgy Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing Mound Builders N.A.G.P.R.A. Norse colonization of the Americas Piasa Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Stickball Three Sisters agriculture Thunderbird Underwater panther Water glyphs
Related Genetic history Portal of Indigenous peoples of North America Pre-Columbian era