Little Egypt (archaeological site)
 Location within Georgia today
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| Location |
Murray County, Georgia,  USA
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| Region | Murray County, Georgia |
| Coordinates | 34°35′58.49″N 84°40′48.76″W / 34.5995806°N 84.6802111°W |
| History | |
| Founded | 1300 CE |
| Abandoned | 1600 CE |
| Periods | Dallas Phase, Lamar Phase, Mouse Creek Phase |
| Cultures | South Appalachian Mississippian culture |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1925, 1969 |
| Archaeologists | Warren K. Moorehead |
| Responsible body: private | |
The Little Egypt site (9 MU 102) was an archaeological site located in Murray County, Georgia, near the junction of the Coosawattee River and Talking Rock Creek. The site originally had three platform mounds surrounding a plaza and a large village area. It was destroyed during the construction of the Dam of Carters Lake in 1972. It was situated between the Ridge and Valley and Piedmont sections of the state in a flood plain. Using Mississippian culture pottery found at the site archaeologists dated the site to the Middle and Late South Appalachinian Mississippian culture (a regional variation of the Mississippian culture) habitation from 1300 to 1600 CE during the Dallas, Lamar, and Mouse Creek phases.
The site lay on a stretch of the Coosawattee River. It was a large village about 12.5 acres (0.051 km2) with three platform mounds and a plaza. Two of the mounds were over 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) in height. The main mound was built up in four stages over the course of many years. Each stage may have represented the inter-generational change from a chief to his successor. Sometime around 1475 CE the site became the capital of a paramount chiefdom ruling over numerous other local villages.
The Coosa chiefdom encountered by the Hernando de Soto expedition had its capital at the Little Egypt site. De Soto and his expedition entered the Coosa chiefdom in 1540. Chroniclers recorded that the chiefdom then consisted of eight villages. Archaeologists have identified the remains of seven of these. The population of the Coosa chiefdom is thought to have been between about 2,500 to 4,650 people. The chief of Coosa ruled over a significantly wider confederation of other chiefdoms, whose territory spread 400 miles along the Appalachian Mountains across northern Georgia into eastern Tennessee and central Alabama, and whose populations totaled in the tens of thousands. This "paramount chiefdom consisted of seven or more smaller chiefdoms, representing about 50,000 people."
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