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Fort Mountain

Georgia, US

Fort Mountain

Fort Mountain is a mountain in northern Georgia, just east of Chatsworth. It is part of the Cohutta Mountains, a small mountain range at the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains. It also lies within the Chattahoochee National Forest. A main feature of Fort Mountain is an ancient rock formation

or ruin of uncertain origin, from which the mountain takes its name. The site lies within Fort Mountain State Park and consists of a series of stone piles lying in a long uneven line that follows the contour of the mountainside. Estimates of its length vary. In a previously published archaeological report, Philip E. Smith (University Of Georgia) gives 928 feet (283 m) as its length, while the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (State Parks Division) estimates the length as 855 feet (261 m). In a book published in 1997, David Freedman, discussing this and similar walls, wrote that "Most experts believe that such wall enclosures were built during the Middle Woodland period (100 BCE-500 CE) when agriculture and food storage methods were well established. This enabled people to live a more settled existence and to devote their energies to large-scale building projects which perhaps would...

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