The mound and village area were constructed during the prehistoric Mississippian culture period. The site features include a village with a central plaza area, a rectangular platform mound, the borrow pit where the fill for the mound was quarried, and a surrounding wooden palisade. The pottery of the Big Eddy phase (1450 - 1560) is related to the pottery of the Moundville III phase (1450-1550 CE) of the large paramount chiefdom at the Moundville site located to the northwest of Tuskigi on the Black Warrior River. Moundville was being abandoned during this period and the Big Eddy phase people are thought to be intrusive to the Coosa River area, and had originated at Moundville. The Big Eddy phase has been tentatively identified as the protohistoricProvince of Tuskaloosa encountered by the Hernando de Soto expedition in 1540, located downriver from the Coosa province.[1][2]
The site was occupied in the historic period by the Alabama and Muscogee (Creek) villages, named respectively Pakana and Taskigi, from which the site takes its name. It is unknown what the original inhabitants and builders of the mound called the site.[1][3][4]
