Early archaeological excavations at Pinson Mounds found evidence that the site was reoccupied on a minor scale at least 1000 years after Woodland Tradition builders had abandoned it. Archaeologists have since found no evidence that Mississippian peoples helped build any of the mounds there, but for a considerable time the entire site was mistakenly believed to be Mississippian in origin, which cost Pinson Mounds much of the renown it might have received if the mounds' true age had been known. Nearby Mound 14 was also Woodland. At this location, a latter Mississippian Tradition wall-trench house was discovered, built close to 1000 years after Pinson Mounds' Middle Woodland beginnings. In this construction method, a trench was dug in the rectangular shape of the house and upright poles were set into it. These rectangular wall-trench house patterns belonged to the Mississippian Tradition after the Woodland mound-building period at Pinson, while Woodland houses from the Pinson Mounds era left circular post mold patterns.