"[2] The site was first excavated by Clarence Bloomfield Moore in 1908 and tested by Philip Phillips, Paul Gebhard and Nick Zeigler in 1949.

Today the site is bisected by a county road and is used as a plantation headquarters but still clearly visible are the numerous large mounds and the remains of a surrounding wall.

Materials of the Crippen Point Phase of the Late Coles Creek appear to be most widely spread, and it may have been at this time that the settlement attained its greatest size.

In the earliest survey of the site, C. B. Moore reported that the wall was four to 6 feet (1.8 m) high and still reached this height although large sections have now been destroyed.

In prehistoric times the rich soils and the varying ecologies supported a vast array of plant and animal species.

[6] The natural levees created by deposits from the Mississippi were made of rich sandy and silty loams which allowed the common Southeastern deciduous hardwoods, such as hickory, elm, ash, cottonwood, maple, pecan, hackberry, honey locust, sycamore, and even gums and oaks, to flourish.

The swamps surrounding the site supported an entirely different ecosystem including alligators, small reptiles and aquatic plants.

[6] The streams and rivers also provided fish, shellfish, and other aquatic fauna, which can be seen from excavations of shell middens and deposits of the site.

[6] C. B. Moore's original estimate is believed to most accurately reflect the situation; many of the smaller earthworks have been lost to recent and intense cultivation.

[7] Moore commented on the physical appearance of the site: "Strewn over the enclosed area, among the mounds and on them…are chert pebbles; fragments of chert; bits of mussel shell; and small parts of earthenware vessels"[7] Most of the earthenware was undecorated, he recorded, and mostly shell-tempered with some stone tempering which is common in the Yazoo-Sunflower region.

[6] C. B. Moore's excavations produced various small artifacts including projectile points, a pebble ax of fossilized wood, a chert hammerstone, and a zoomorphic effigy pipe of shell-tempered pottery.

In 1949 Philip Phillips, Paul Gebhard and Nick Zeigler began performing test excavations of the Holly Bluff site.