Aittafama Archaeological Park

Radiocarbon dates place this fortified Mississippian village in the early 1400s, and it was abandoned around 1450 for reasons that remain unclear. Archaeologists found two wooden palisades, a rare circular building probably used as a granary, and corn kernels beside a fish-effigy bowl on a house floor; the people here grew corn, beans and squash. The Tennessee Division of Archaeology recorded the site in 1972, and a partial excavation in 1999 preceded road work on Hillsboro Road. Metro Parks bought seven acres in 2014, and as of 2025 the park is undeveloped. The marker stands beside the road.

What the plaque says

Aittafama Archaeological Park Created in 2014, this park protects one of the few remaining undisturbed Mississippian period villages in Davidson County. The Native Americans who lived here were part of a landscape of farms, villages, and mound centers that flourished along the Harpeth River between 1250-1440 CE. By the late 1400s, Native Americans vacated Middle Tennessee after many years of drought, warfare, and political instability. The name Aaittafama' means "gathering place" in Chickasaw, a Muskogean language likely related to that spoken by Native Americans who once lived here.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Negley — 8.5 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
• Fisk University and Jubilee Hall — 9.1 mi
  The 1866 school for freed people whose Jubilee Singers paid for Jubilee Hall, a National Historic Landmark, and whose students helped start Nashville's sit-ins.
• National Museum of African American Music — 9.3 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 9.3 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.

More markers nearby

• Montpier — 3.0 mi
• Hiram and Eveline Overton's Wagon and Blacksmith Shop — 3.2 mi
• West Meade — 3.6 mi
• Battle of Nashville: Redoubt No. 5 — 4.1 mi