The Alabama region at the period of European contact is best described as a collection of moderately sized native chiefdoms (such as the Coosa chiefdom on the upper Coosa River and the Tuskaloosa chiefdom on the lower Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Alabama Rivers), interspersed with completely autonomous villages and tribal groups. Many of the settlements de Soto encountered had platform mounds and villages fortified with defensive palisades with bastions for archers. The South Appalachian Mississippian culture "Big Eddy phase" has been tentatively identified as the protohistoric "Province of Tuskaloosa" encountered by the de Soto expedition in 1540. The Big Eddy phase Taskigi Mound is a platform mound and fortified village site located at the confluence of the Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Alabama Rivers near Wetumpka, Alabama. It is preserved as part of the Fort Toulouse-Fort Jackson State Historic Site and is one of the locations included on the University of Alabama Museums "Alabama Indigenous Mound Trail".