It consists of major earthwork monuments, including more than twelve large platform mounds and cleared and filled plazas.

It is the type site for the Winterville Phase (1200 to 1400) of the Lower Yazoo Basin region of the Plaquemine Mississippian culture.

The earthwork mounds, an expression of the Winterville society's religious and political system, were the site of sacred structures and ceremonies.

[5] Archaeological evidence indicates that the Winterville people lived away from the mound center on family farms in scattered settlement districts throughout the Yazoo-Mississippi River Delta basin.

The Winterville ceremonial center originally contained at least twenty-three platform mounds surrounding several large, filled and smoothed plazas.

[4] Archaeological evidence indicates that there are continuities in culture between the residents of the Winterville Mounds and the later Natchez Indians, a Mississippi tribe documented by French explorers and settlers in the early 18th century.

Such an elaborate leadership network was able to direct the mound building at Winterville by an organized civilian labor force.

The period of the site's greatest florescence was used by archaeologists as the basis for describing the Winterville Phase (1200 to 1400 CE) of the Lower Yazoo Basin region.

The first modern archaeological excavations at the Winterville site were conducted in the 1940s by the National Park Service and Harvard University's Lower Mississippi Survey.

Burials and structural remains were found at the site, along with items such as ceramic and stone artifacts; the latter can be seen at the Winterville Museum in the park.

Forms for the pottery range from shallow plate like bowls to beakers and jars, with some pieces having animal effigies for handles.