Aaittafama' Archaeological Park Planning Meetings Set

NASHVILLE, TN -- Metro Parks is gearing up to open Davidson County's first archaeological park at the largest remaining late-prehistoric village in the area.

Once known as the Kellytown site, the Aaittafama' -- from a Chickasaw word for "a place for meeting together" -- Archaeological Park at the corner of Hillsboro Road and Old Hickory Boulevard near the Davidson-Williamson county line was acquired through a combined effort of the Friends of Kellytown (now Friends of Aaittafama'), Metro Parks and the City of Forest Hills. Phase I of the parks plan includes walking trails, historical interpretation, landscaping and parking and Metro is applying for a state grant to help with the project.

Two public meetings are scheduled to discuss the park's future:

• 11:30 a.m., January 9, Parks Small Board Room 2565 Park Plaza
• 5 p.m., January 17, Forest Hills City Hall, 6300 Hillsboro Pike

In addition to the two public meetings, a “Social Media Public Meeting” will be held as a discussion on the department’s Facebook page, Metro Nashville Parks and Recreation. Residents are also invited to share ideas and opinions for the park by emailing metroparks@nashville.gov.

The village was populated with about 60 families during the early and middle Mississippian period (between 900 and 1450 AD) and until the late 1990s, no one even knew it was there at all. Though archaeologists had some inkling the site had importance as early as the late 1970s, it wasn't until the Tennessee Department of Transportation announced a plan to add a turn lane from Hillsboro Road on to Old Hickory Boulevard in the late 1990s that the sheer scope of the village was known. Workers found dozens of pieces of evidence of a village in just 30 feet of right of way. By the time the site review was completed, archaeologists found 12 buildings, seven graves and two palisade lines designed to protect the village from intruders and wild animals.

The choice of the Chickasaw language for the name of the park is an appropriate one: the Chickasaw are among the dozens of tribes which emerged after the widespread disappearance of Mississippian culture between 1450 and 1500. Further, the Chickasaws were friendly with James Robertson, the founder of Nashville, and joined with white settlers to fight off attacks by the Chickamaugan alliance, which was attacking settlements in Middle Tennessee with support of the Spanish, which had designs on the region. In 1783, Chickasaw chiefs signed a treaty in which white settlers promised not infringe on their trade and designating the land south of the Duck River for the tribe. Settlers and Chickasaws regularly teamed up to fight off the Cherokees, Creeks and others and it's unlikely the Nashville settlement would have survived repeated onslaughts by the other tribes without Chickasaw aid. The treaty is commemorated with a historical marker in West Park.

Image via Metro Parks