Winterville Mounds was an important political and religious center during the Mississippi period from about AD 1200 to 1450. First occupied during the Coles Creek Period, beginning around AD 1000, the site originally had as many as 23 mounds, the largest of which is 55 feet tall. These mounds were flanked by open plazas to the northeast and southwest, and a ring of boundary mounds surrounded both plaza areas. The mounds were built between AD 1200 and 1450, and many of them had structures on their summits.
