Winterville Site, Archaeological mound complex in Washington County, United States.
Winterville Site is a complex of more than twelve earthen platform mounds and leveled plazas in Washington County, Mississippi. Its largest, the Temple Mound, rises 55 feet (17 m) and has a flat top; a straight earthen ramp climbs its left side. A small dark-roofed structure stands on the summit, and smaller mounds with similar structures surround it.
The Plaquemine culture built the mounds between 1200 and 1250 CE as a ceremonial center; at least 23 platform mounds originally ringed several filled and smoothed plazas. A fire destroyed the building on the 17 m Temple Mound in the late 14th century, after which no new mounds were raised. Occupation declined as settlement shifted 50 miles south in the lower Yazoo basin, and the site was abandoned by 1450.
Winterville Mounds takes its name from the nearby town of Winterville. The site was a ceremonial center rather than a town: archaeology found few artifacts and no large residential population, and most people lived on family farms across the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. Rank was inherited through the female line, as later among the Natchez, and that leadership organized the labor that raised the mounds.
The park is reached from Mississippi Highway 1 north of Greenville, in unincorporated Washington County. A museum on the grounds displays ceramic and stone artifacts from the site. In June 2015 the state authorized $300,000 to clear trees and brush from the mounds and add two walking trails.
The Temple Mound's summit building burned in the late 14th century, and archaeology has not established the cause. After the fire no new mounds were raised or kept up, and the population shifted to settlements about 50 miles south in the lower Yazoo basin. The site was abandoned by 1450 CE.
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