Ocmulgee has 17,000 years of continuous human history, from Ice Age hunters to the Muscogee (Creek) people. Nomadic Paleo-Indian people came to the Macon Plateau to hunt large mammals. During the Archaic Period, people were hunters and gatherers who began making woven baskets and crude pottery. In the Woodland Period, people on the Macon Plateau began settling into small villages and experimenting with growing crops. The Mississippian Culture was the most complex and left the greatest influence here by building mounds for elite members of society and earth lodges for religious and governmental purposes; their culture thrived here until Europeans arrived in 1540. The Mississippians built earth lodges used as winter council chambers for meetings and ceremonies, and one reconstructed earth lodge preserves an original floor carbon dated to 1000 years ago. Today, seven mounds constructed by the Mississippians remain. The Muscogee (Creek), descendants of the Mississippian Culture, adapted to European ways of life such as living in log cabins, farming cotton, and raising cattle, but in 1836 they were forced out of Georgia to live in Indian Territory (Oklahoma).