The Tennessee Division of Archaeology conducted excavations at the Tuskegee site (40MR4, 40MR24 and 40MR64) in the summer of 1976 in anticipation of the completion of Tellico Dam. Since TVA used the soil around the Tuskegee site for fill dirt to raise adjacent Fort Loudoun above lake operating levels, archaeologists were able to examine a relatively large area around the site (approximately 2.5 acres). These excavations found evidence of twelve structures from various periods dating to the Southern Appalachia Mississippian period, and artifacts from as early as the Archaic period, approximately 7500 BC. (The Tuskegee site lies roughly adjacent to Icehouse Bottom, a key Archaic period site).