A wall of piled stone and earth, about 4,600 feet long if laid end to end, closes off fifty acres of plateau where the Duck and Little Duck Rivers meet. Settlers and antiquarians took it for a fort built by Welsh, Norse or Spanish visitors. In 1966 University of Tennessee archaeologists proved that Native people built it some 2,000 years ago, in stages that radiocarbon dates place between about 80 A.D., when the entrance ditch was dug, and 550 A.D., when the last walls were finished.
Archaeologists tie the work to the McFarland and Owl Hollow cultures of the upper Duck River valley, farming and pottery-making peoples who traded with the Hopewell world of Ohio. The entrance is the telling part: a ditch, a pedestal mound on either side and parallel walls forming a cul-de-sac, with walls that seem to point to the position of the sun at the summer solstice. Most scholars think it was sacred space, though what ceremonies took place here is not known.
The state park holds 782 acres. Trails run along the earthwork and the bluffs above both rivers, past waterfalls, and the museum covers the Native cultures, early industry and natural history of the site. Keep to the marked trails: the bluffs are steep, and the park asks visitors not to jump from them or from the falls.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour