Located in the southeastern portion of Lawrence County, Oakville Indian Mounds Park and Museum is shaded by the 180,000 acre William B. Bankhead National Forest and shares the treasures and remaining vestiges of the great Indian hunting grounds. The Bankhead is encompassed by part of the Warrior Mountains, the western terminus of the Appalachian Mountains. With its prolific wildlife, waterfalls, caves, and deep gorges, Bankhead is one of the southeast’s premier sites for petroglyphs, prehistoric drawings, and rock carvings. Indians hunted in this area for some 12,000 years before the Europeans arrived. Oakville Indian Mounds Park (hereinafter referred to as the Park) is an educational, archeological, genealogical, and sociological legacy to Lawrence County and North Alabama. Spanning a timeline of human occupation of over 14,000 years and a diversity of races and cultures, the Park preserves, protects, and presents artifacts dating as far back as 10,000 B.C. and ancient geological evidence of the settlement and evolution of the people of this region of Alabama. Creek (Muskogee), Yuchi (Uchean), Shawnee (Algonquin), Chickasaw (Muskogee), and Cherokee (Iroquoian) Indians were the five historic tribes to live in the Oakville area.