Macon lies on the site of the Ocmulgee Old
Fields, where the historic Creek Indians lived in the 18th century. Their
prehistoric predecessors, the Mississippian culture, built a powerful chiefdom
(950–1100 AD) based on an agricultural village and constructed earthwork mounds
for ceremonial, burial and religious purposes. The areas along the rivers in
the Southeast had been inhabited by varying cultures of indigenous peoples for
13,000 years before Europeans arrived.
Macon developed at the site of Fort
Benjamin Hawkins, built from 1806–1809 at
