Coosa

Coosa was a paramount chiefdom centered on the Coosawattee River in what is now northwestern Georgia. Its capital had a plaza and three platform mounds, and its chiefs commanded a wider alliance of smaller chiefdoms extending into Tennessee and Alabama.

Hernando de Soto's expedition entered Coosa in 1540, and later Spanish expeditions visited in 1560 and 1566–1568. By the end of the sixteenth century, disease and disruption had contributed to the abandonment of most of Coosa's heartland; survivors withdrew to villages on the Coosa River in Alabama.