556 PREHISTORIC VILLAGES IN TENNESSEE [ETH. ANN. 41 
Somewhere in southeastern West Virginia and southwestern Vir- 
ginia the Gordon people appear to have been struck, possibly by the 
Cherokees, who had hitherto been living in their former northern 
homes on the extreme headwaters of the Ohio River or were gradually 
working southward therefrom. The invading Cherokees appear to 
have driven out the Gordon bands, and advanced down the Allegheny 
range until they reached the region in eastern Tennessee and western 
North Carolina where they were later found by the early whites. 
The driving out of the ancient Gordon bands was several hundred 
years before 1540, the time at which De Soto found the Cherokees 
in this region, firmly fixed in these seats, which even then appeared 
to have been long occupied by them. 
The advancing Cherokees drove the apparently kindred Gordon 
bands to the south and southwest. Traces of them are found near 
Augusta, Ga.; Moundsville, Ala.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Henry’s island, 
in Tennessee River, near Guntersville, Marshall County, Ala.; Cas- 
talian Springs, Sumner County, Tenn.; near Labanon, Wilson County, 
Tenn.; near Hendersonville, Sumner County, Tenn.; at Nashville, 
and on the Gordon site and at many other places in the Cumberland 
Valley. 
When the Gordon bands reached the Central Basin of Tennessee 
they established many large settlements within a radius of 75 miles 
of Nashville. Their seats were towns of large size and strongly 
fortified. The immense number of graves showing traces of rela- 
tionship indicate they lived in this region for many hundreds of years. 
There are also many other evidences corroborating this. They 
appear to have been gradually driven out of this fertile basin at some 
unknown time before the year 1000 A. D. When they were driven 
out they went slowly, in scattered bands and at different times, down 
the Cumberland .and out the Ohio River, forming scattered settle- 
ments at many points in their slow remoyal. Traces of a very few 
of these settlements have been found near the mouth of the Cumber- 
Jand and along the banks of the lower Ohio River from Shawneetown 
to the mouth of the Ohio. 
At the mouth of the Ohio River some of these bands or tribes went 
downstream, where traces of them have been found in southeastern 
Missouri, around New Madrid; in northeastern Arkansas; on the 
White and St. Francis Rivers; and also around the mouths of the 
Arkansas and Yazoo Rivers. 
At the mouth of the Ohio other bands or tribes appear to have 
gone up the Mississippi. Possible traces of some of their settlements 
in Illinois, near the Mississippi, between the mouth of the Ohio and 
the Missouri, are to be found at the following points described in the 
Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology: 
