The site was occupied by Native Americans of the Mississippian culture from around 1000 AD to 1450 AD. Around 1150 AD the settlement's leaders began their rise from a local to a regional center, known as a chiefdom. At its height, the community took the form of a roughly residential and political area, protected on three sides by a bastioned wooden palisade wall. The remaining side was protected by the river bluff.
