Oconee County is located in northeastern Georgia. Its county seat is Watkinsville. It is named after the Oconee River, which was named after the Okonee branch of the Creek Indians. To the north of Oconee is Clarke County. It is bounded on the east by Oglethorpe County. Walton County forms its western boundary, while Greene defines its southeastern boundary and Morgan County adjoins Oconee on the south.
Geology and Hydrology
The entire county is in Georgia’s Piedmont, which was originally an ancient mountain range that has been leveled through the eons. This region is underlain by igneous and metamorphic rocks. There are outcrops of granite or gneiss in several locations.
Creek Chief
Most of Oconee County drains into the Oconee River. The north and middle forks of the Oconee form in Hall County, GA then join in Clarke County. Its terrain is characterized by rolling hills and stream valleys whose peripheries vary from being moderate to steep in slope. Due to improper farming techniques in the 1800’s and early 1900s, much of the exposed soil now is red clay. Fertile top soils can still be seen along some sections of river or creeks. There are a few shallow, seasonal wetlands near streams that usually dry up in the summer.
In pre-European times the alluvial soils suitable to cultivation with a hoe were relatively small in scale and scattered among stream valleys. This necessitated the dispersal of farmsteads and hamlets. Farm hamlets may have stayed at these stream hamlets no more than a generation.
Eastern Woodland Bison were plentiful in northeast Georgia until hunted to extinction in the 1700s. Several “buffalo wallows” were visible in and near Oconee into the 20th century. The large herds of bison combined with constant brush fires being set by the Creek Indians caused the landscape to resemble the hillier sections of the Great Plains. Late 18th century settlers quickly turned the sod into cultivated fields. In the late 20th century the abandoned farm lands have become mixed hardwood and pine forests.
Native American occupation
In Colonial times, the land of present-day Oconee County was occupied by the Keowee Branch of the Okate or Okani Indians. They were a branch of the Muskogeans that spoke the Itsati (Hitchiti-Creek) language. There is much confusion about the ethnicity of the Keowee, because the Keowee in South Carolina formed the core of the original Lower Cherokees. However, the Lower Cherokees were originally composed of towns that primarily spoke Muskogean dialects. They were not Algonquians or Iroquoians like other original branches of the Cherokees. The southern boundary of the Cherokee Nation was always north of present day Oconee County.
There are several mounds at the Keowee archaeological site in Oconee County. The site apparently was a regional capital. It has received minimal attention from professional archaeologists.
Native American Cultural Periods
Earliest Inhabitants
Archaeologists believe that humans have lived in Oconee County for at least 12,000 years, perhaps much longer. Clovis and Folsom points, associated with Late Ice age big game hunters have been found in the Oconee, Ocmulgee and Altamaha River Basins. During the Ice Age, herds of giant mammals roamed the river bottom lands. The mastodons, saber tooth tigers, giant sloths and other massive mammals died out about 8,000 years ago. It is believed by archaeologists that early bands of hunters followed the herds on their seasonal migrations through the region, but did not have a significant population
Archaic Period: 8,000 BC – 1000 BC
After the climate warmed, animals and plants typical of today soon predominated in this region. Humans adapted to the changes and gradually became more sophisticated. They adopted seasonal migratory patterns that maximized access to food resources. Archaic hunters probably moved to locations along the Oconee River during the winter, where they could eat fish and fresh water mussels, if game was not plentiful.
During the late Archaic Period, a major trade route developed along the Altamaha-Oconee-Ocmulgee River System that connected the South Atlantic Coast with the Appalachian Mountains, via the Upper Savannah and Chattahoochee Rivers. At this time, Native Americans began traveling long distances to trade and socialize. In Native American tradition, it was a long era of peaceful relations between peoples.
During the Early Archaic Period, bands of indigenous peoples, who survived by hunting, fishing, gathering edible nuts, fruits & roots, plus harvesting fresh water mussels, established seasonal villages and camps. The habitation sites were concentrated along the Oconee River and major streams. Villagers seasonally migrated between locations within fixed territorial boundaries to take advantage of maximum food availability from natural sources.
Beginning around 3,500 BC, Southeastern Native Americans began to intentionally cultivate wild plants near village sites. Over the centuries, selective cultivation resulted in domestic plants that were genetically different than their wild cousins. As the productivity of indigenous crops increased, the indigenous people were able to remain longer at village sites, and therefore had fewer habitation locations.
By the Late Archaic Period, c. 2500 BC, the knowledge of making pottery appeared in the Savannah River and Altamaha Rivers Basins. This Stallings Island pottery composes the oldest known ceramics in the Western Hemisphere. Large mounds of freshwater mussel shells developed along the Oconee at shoals, where villagers camped for generation after generation. More sedentary lifestyles made possible the development of pottery and carving of soapstone bowls. These items were impractical as long as people were migratory.
Woodland Period (1000 BC – 900 AD)
Beginning in the Woodland Period Native population began concentrating along the Fall Line of the Oconee River. A sedentary lifestyle was made possible by abundant natural food sources such as game, freshwater mussels and chestnuts and the cultivation of gardens. Initially, the cultivated plants were of indigenous origin and included a native squash, native sweet potato, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichoke, amaranth, sump weed, and chenopodium. Tobacco, maize, Mesoamerican types of squash, and finally several varieties of beans arrived later.
The early villages were relatively small and dispersed. There was probably much socialization between these villages because of the need to find spouses that were not closely related. Houses were round and built out of saplings, river cane and thatch.
The Woodland Period peoples of the region built some mounds. Apparently, most mounds were primarily for landmarks, stages for ceremonies or burials, but may have also supported simple structures that were used for rituals or meetings. They were constructed accretionally. This means that the mounds grew in size over the generations by piling soil and detritus from the village over recent burials. There were also shell middens that were the result of thousands of years of harvesting fresh water mussels, then feasting on them at the same location.
The first wave of Muskogeans (ancestors of the Alabama Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians) probably arrived in present day Georgia around 400-300 BC. Few Woodland Period archaeological sites have been professionally studied in the Oconee River Basin. It is not clear when the ethnicity of the Oconee Basin changed to being directly ancestral to contemporary Muskogeans. Studies show general similarity of Early Woodland cord marked artifacts to those of the Carolina Coastal Plain, which is thought to have been Siouan.
Middle Woodland villages apparently were concentrated along the Fall Line of the Ocmulgee, Oconee and Chattahoochee Rivers. The villages on the Upper Oconee showed some influence from the Swift Creek Culture, which produced ornately stamped pottery, but also continued Archaic Period artistic traditions. In Oconee County, the Middle Woodland village sites were probably very modest in size and located at the edge of the flood plain of Oconee River or major creeks.
Muskogean tradition remembers the Middle Woodland Period as time when there was much long distance trade and when Corn Woman came from afar to introduce the cultivation of foreign plants such as tobacco, maize, beans and some new types of squash.
Late Woodland Period 600 AD – 900 AD
Around 600 AD, many villages south of the Fall Line in the Ocmulgee-Oconee-Altamaha Basin were apparently abandoned. However, the Swift Culture continued for some time in northeastern Georgia. Swift Creek Style ceramics can be found near the headwaters of the Oconee, Chattahoochee and Savannah Rivers in northeast Georgia that date as late as 1000 AD.
Coinciding with the disappearance of Swift Creek villages is the wide spread use of the bow and arrow. Arrow points are easily distinguishable from atlatl (javelin) and spear points by their smaller size. It is not clear if the scarcity of known Late Woodland settlement equates to a drop in total population, or an adaptation to hunting and fighting with a bow. Muskogean tradition remembers the Late Woodland Period as a horrific time of chaos, when society broke down because of long term feuds between clans, while raiders in “Feathered Serpent” boats appeared out of nowhere to attack villages located on major rivers. The Creek Indians even made a special type of smoking pipe in the shape of a Feathered Serpent canoe . . . the cultural memory was that traumatic.
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (900 AD – 1150 AD)
Stark cultural changes began appearing on the Middle Ocmulgee and Lower Chattahoochee Rivers around 900 AD. The earliest mounds of this new cultural tradition have been radiocarbon dated around 900 AD, but the initial cultural influences apparently came a little earlier on the Lower Chattahoochee. Creek Indian tradition remembers this time as when strangers known as Sun Man and Sun Woman came from afar and introduc