page_title: Fewkes Group Archaeological Site
section_title: Site description
hierarchical_section_title: Fewkes Group Archaeological Site / Site description
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Fewkes Group Archaeological Site in Brentwood, Tennessee.
context_page_description: Fewkes Group Archaeological Site, also known as the Boiling Springs Site, is a pre American history Native American archaeological site located in the city of Brentwood, in Williamson County, Tennessee. It is in Primm Historic Park on the grounds of Boiling Spring Academy, a historic schoolhouse established in 1830. The 15-acre site consists of the remains of a late Mississippian culture mound complex and village roughly dating to 1050-1475 AD. The site, which sits on the western bank of the Little Harpeth River, has five mounds, some used for burial and others, including the largest, were ceremonial platform mounds. The village was abandoned for unknown reasons around 1450. The site is named in honor of Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, the Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1920, who had visited the site and recognized its potential.
  While it was partially excavated by the landowner in 1895, archaeologist William E. Myer directed a second, more thorough excavation in October 1920. The report of his findings was published in the Bureau of American Ethnology's Forty-First Annual Report. Many of the artifacts recovered from the site are now housed at the Smithsonian Institution.
context_section_description: There are five mounds at the Fewkes site. Four of them are located opposite of each other on each side of a level town plaza, and the fifth (smallest) mound is situated on the riverbank directly to the north of mound No. 1, outside the town center. (Looking at the site today, the Boiling Spring Schoolhouse now sits between mound No.1 and mound No. 5). Mound No. 1 is the largest at the site, being 25 feet (7.6 m) in height. Remnants of about a dozen house circles were found scattered around the outer edges of the group of mounds, mostly between mounds No.1 and No. 5. The most important houses adjoined mound No. 1 on the northeast side. These are represented on the 1920 map by circles. Traces of a stone box cemetery were also found on the property, not far from the mound complex.
caption: 1920 Map of Fewkes Group
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