In present-day Hayesville, North Carolina, the Spikebuck Town Mound and Village Site preserves the Cherokee town of Quanassee and associated farmsteads along Town Creek near the Hiwassee River. Its central earthen mound was likely built around 1000 CE during the South Appalachian Mississippian period and later supported a Cherokee townhouse used for ceremony and public affairs. People lived in this river corridor for more than a thousand years. Quanassee was one of the Cherokee Valley Towns, but after declining by 1721 it was destroyed in 1776 during the Rutherford Light Horse expedition. Archaeology has revealed long occupation, colonial-era exchange, and broad Native trade networks, and the site is now protected and remains important to Cherokee history.