For thousands of years, succeeding cultures of prehistoric indigenous peoples had settled on what is called the Macon Plateau at the Fall Line, where the rolling hills of the Piedmont met the Atlantic coastal plain. The monument designation included the Lamar Mounds and Village Site, located downriver about from Macon. The site was designated for federal protection by the National Park Service (NPS) in 1934, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, and redesignated as an national historical park in 2019.