Editing Knoxville, Tennessee (section)

===Early history===
The first people to form substantial settlements in what is now Knoxville were indigenous people who arrived during the [[Woodland period]] ({{c.}} 1000 B.C. to 1000 A.D.).<ref name="Fletcher Jolly III 1976">Fletcher Jolly III, "40KN37: An Early Woodland Habitation Site in Knox County, Tennessee", ''Tennessee Archaeologist'' 31, nos. 1–2 (1976), 51.</ref> One of the oldest artificial structures in Knoxville is a [[University of Tennessee Agriculture Farm Mound|burial mound]] constructed during the early [[Mississippian culture]] period ({{c.}} 1000–1400 A.D.). The earthwork mound has been preserved, but the campus of the University of Tennessee developed around it.<ref>Frank H. McClung Museum, "[http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/permanent/native/woodland.shtml Woodland Period] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120412122905/http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/permanent/native/woodland.shtml |date=April 12, 2012 }}". Retrieved: March 25, 2008.</ref>

Other prehistoric sites include an Early Woodland habitation area at the confluence of the Tennessee River and Knob Creek (near the [[Knox County, Tennessee|Knox]]–[[Blount County, Tennessee|Blount]] county line),<ref name="Fletcher Jolly III 1976"/> and [[Dallas phase]] Mississippian villages at Post Oak Island (also along the river near the Knox–Blount line),<ref>James Strange, "An Unusual Late Prehistoric Pipe from Post Oak Island (40KN23)", ''Tennessee Archaeologist'' 30, no. 1 (1974), 80.</ref> and at [[Bussell Island]] (at the mouth of the [[Little Tennessee River]] near [[Lenoir City, Tennessee|Lenoir City]]).<ref>Richard Polhemus, ''The Toqua Site—40MR6'', Vol. I (Norris, Tenn.: Tennessee Valley Authority, 1987), 1240-1246.</ref>

By the 18th century, the [[Cherokee]], an [[Iroquoian language]] people, had become the dominant tribe in the East Tennessee region; they are believed to have migrated centuries before from the [[Great Lakes region]]. They were frequently at war with the [[Muscogee|Creek]] and [[Shawnee]].<ref>Cora Tula Watters, "Shawnee". ''The Encyclopedia of Appalachia'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), 278–279.</ref><ref>Ima Stephens, "Creek", ''The Encyclopedia of Appalachia'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), 252–253.</ref> The Cherokee people called the Knoxville area ''kuwanda'talun'yi'', which means "mulberry place".<ref>[[James Mooney]], ''Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee'' (Nashville: Charles Elder, 1972—reprint from 1891 and 1900), 526.</ref> Most Cherokee habitation in the area was concentrated in what the American colonists called the [[Overhill Cherokee|Overhill settlements]] along the [[Little Tennessee River]], southwest of Knoxville.

The first white traders and explorers were recorded as arriving in the [[Tennessee Valley]] in the late 17th century. There is significant evidence that Spanish explorer [[Hernando de Soto (explorer)|Hernando de Soto]] visited Bussell Island in 1540.<ref>[[Jefferson Chapman]], ''Tellico Archaeology: 12,000 Years of Native American History'' (Norris, Tenn.: Tennessee Valley Authority, 1985), 97.</ref> The first major recorded Euro-American presence in the Knoxville area was the [[Timberlake Expedition]], which passed through the confluence of the [[Holston River|Holston]] and [[French Broad River|French Broad]] into the Tennessee River in December 1761. [[Henry Timberlake]], an Anglo-American emissary from the [[Thirteen Colonies]] to the Overhill settlements, recalled being pleased by the deep waters of the Tennessee after his party had struggled down the relatively shallow Holston for several weeks.<ref>Henry Timberlake, Samuel Williams (ed.), ''Memoirs, 1756–1765'' (Marietta, Georgia: Continental Book Co., 1948), 54.</ref>