The Chieftains excavation project was carried out during the summers of 1969, 1970, and 1971. The 1969 excavation was carried out over a two week period and underwritten by the Colanese Fibers Corporation of Rome. The 1970 and 1971 excavations took a total of twenty-one weeks, and were funded by the Junior Service League of Rome. The purpose of the initial excavation was to determine the research potential of the site, and the remaining work was carried out in order to precisely define the life style of the Ridge family and delineate the settlement pattern of the homestead. The long term goals of the excavation were not fulfilled, but although the data recovered from Chieftains revealed few specifics about the Ridge family, it revealed a great deal about the Cherokee Nation as a whole in the immediate Pre-Removal era.
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