The area now known as Tennessee was first inhabited by Paleo-Indians nearly 12,000 years ago. The names of the cultural groups that inhabited the area between first settlement and the time of European contact are unknown, but several distinct cultural phases have been named by archaeologists, including Archaic (8000–1000 BC), Woodland (1000 BC–1000 AD), and Mississippian (1000–1600 AD), whose chiefdoms were the cultural predecessors of the Muscogee people who inhabited the Tennessee River Valley before Cherokee migration into the river's headwaters. COUNT 4
QSN1 How many years ago was Tennessee first inhabited by humans? ANS1 12,000 QSN2 What time period corresponds with the Mississippian cultural phase in early Tennessee history? ANS2 1000–1600 AD QSN3 Which Native American people are the first group to inhabit Tennessee that we know by name? ANS3 Muscogee QSN4 What do archaeologists call the cultural phase of the inhabitants of Tennessee between 1000 BC and 1000 AD? ANS4 Woodland