only two population centers survived along the Chattahoochee in the late 16th century, situated on opposite sides of the river south of the falls at Columbus. Both sites had large platform mounds, and may have served as ceremonial centers. While some archaeologists believe that some sites along the Chattahoochee remained stable population centers, and became sites of later population expansion, other archaeologists believe that there were significant influxes of other people into the Chattahoochee Valley, changing the material culture of the area. Muscogee language-speaking people from the Coosa and Tallapoosa areas in Alabama may have moved into the Chattahoochee valley during the middle part of the 17th century. Folklore of the Lower Towns of the Muscogee Confederacy supports an interpretation of Muscogee-speaking immigrants joining a Hitchiti-speaking resident population, with the Chattahoochee River area including both Hitchiti- and Muscogee-speaking towns by the later 16th century. Speakers of the Koasati language, Apalachee people, and people known as Chisca or Yuchi also settled in the Chattahoochee towns in the later 17th century. John Worth placed the town of Hitchiti on the eastern (Georgia) side of the Chattahoochee River in the late 17th century, possibly at archaeological site 9Ce1 in Chattahoochee County, Georgia. That site was just south of the Muscogee-speaking towns of Coweta, Cusseta, and Kolomi. On Ochese Creek Late in the 17th century all of the towns on the Chattahoochee River moved to central Georgia, primarily to what the English then called Ochese Creek, now called the Ocmulgee River. One map from 1715 showed a town with the name "Ewches" near present-day Macon, Georgia. Another map showed a town called "Echeetes" in the same area. "Ewches" may have been a mis-transcription of "Ochisi", "Yuchi", or "Echeetes", but "Echeetes" is understood to be "Hitchiti". Worth identifies "Ewches" with archaeological site 9Bi22, and "Echeetes" with the cluster of sites 9Bi7, 9Bi8, and 9Bi9, all in Bibb County, Georgia. After the Yemassee War in 1715, almost all of the towns formerly from Apalachicola Province moved back to the Chattahoochee River. Return to Chattahoochee River Hitchiti was one of the towns of the old Apalachicola Province that returned to the Chattahoochee River after the Yemassee War. Diego Peña traveled to the towns on the Chattahoochee River in 1716 on a mission from the governor of Spanish Florida. He reported Achito (Hitchiti) to be located between the towns of Apalachicola and Okmulgue, and to have 54 "warriors".