It was used as a ceremonial center for a population who resided in outlying villages and hamlets, but takes its name from the historic Emerald Plantation that surrounded the mound in the 19th century.

The large mound began as a natural hill, which was built up by workers' depositing earth along the sides, reshaping it and creating an elongated, pentagonal-shaped, artificial plateau.

[8] Archaeologists believe that the Plaquemine culture builders were the ancestors of the historic Natchez, who inhabited the area and used Emerald Mound site as their main ceremonial center at time of first European contact.

By the late 1730s, the Natchez had abandoned Emerald,[4] possibly because of social upheaval that followed extensive fatalities from European diseases introduced to the American Southeast by the de Soto expedition in the 1540s.

[10] By the time of the La Salle Expedition of 1682, the tribe's main ceremonial center was located at the Grand Village of the Natchez or Fatherland site, 12 miles (19 km) to the southwest.

[11] The people of the tribe lived in a widely dispersed settlement pattern, mainly in small hamlets and on family farms.

The first excavations took place in 1838, and were recorded by John C. Van Tramp in his book Prairie and Rocky Mountain Adventures, or, Life In The West.

Animal remains, ceramic fragments, tools, and the stratigraphy—all studied by National Park Service archeologists—offer a glimpse into the life of Emerald's ancient inhabitants.