Spanning more than 300 acres, Moundville Archaeological Park preserves the largest indigenous mound complex in the Southeast and the remains of a civilization that dominated most of present-day Alabama between A.D. 1120 and A.D. 1650. Its twenty-nine mounds were arranged around an open plaza, and archaeological deposits have revealed the rich ceremonial, social, and political lives of the city's inhabitants. The site contains the remains of houses, ceremonial and civic buildings, heaps of accumulated trash, a mile-long bastioned palisade, leveled plazas, and the footprints of still other mounds. For nearly two hundred years, Moundville and its surrounding population of 5,000 was unmatched in size by any other North American indigenous settlement, and its influence was felt throughout the region. Skilled craftspeople there produced religious and political objects according to a well-defined artistic system, and archaeologists have discovered unique art objects from Moundville at other major mound centers throughout the Southeast, indicating relationships between those peoples and the people of Moundville. The site remains deeply important to numerous Southeastern indigenous tribes who assert an ancestral connection with those who built and occupied Alabama’s ancient mounds, and its earthworks, objects, and recovered information reveal a rich cultural tradition that still thrives today among these tribes.