The mound at Andalex at its final height stood five feet tall and measured approximately 75 by 85 feet. It served as an earthen platform for the leader's house. Over time, it grew in three stages as the town's leadership changed. Each house, however, measured about 15 x 20 feet.
Village residents built the first mound and constructed the leader's house on top of it when they established their community. Years later, they removed the structure. Then, they capped the mound with clay and erected a new house. This increased the mound's size and height. Fire destroyed the second house, and so residents once again capped the mound with a layer of clay, and built a third house. And again, the mound's size and height increased. When the residents left the site, they tore down the leader's house and capped the mound with clay.
Like other Mississippian groups in the region, ceramic vessels made and used by the members of the Andalex community were mainly plain-surfaced and tempered (adding material to the clay to ensure even drying and firing of a vessel) with coarsely crushed freshwater mussel shell fragments. Archaeologists refer to this kind of pottery as "Mississippi Plain." Community potters incised geometric designs on jar necks (Pond River Incised), as shown in the image (to the left).
Investigators also recovered a fair amount of well-made, plain-surfaced ceramics tempered with fine bits of crushed freshwater mussel shell, which archaeologists call "Bell Plain." Lesser amounts of coarsely shell tempered fabric-impressed (Kimmswick Fabric Impressed) and coarsely shell tempered check-stamped (Wolf Creek Checked Stamped) examples also were recovered from the site.
Most vessels were jars, but archaeologists also recovered some examples of bowls and pans. Jar handles were equally divided between loop-shaped and flatter strap-shaped examples. Nodes and lugs also were present on jars.
Andalex Village residents hunted mainly deer, which they supplemented with other large mammals, such as bear, and smaller mammals, such as raccoon, fox, squirrel, and rabbit. Surprisingly, even though the village was located close to the Pond River, residents did not focus significantly on river resources. Fish, muskrat, and beaver are poorly represented in the site's animal bone collection.
These farming peoples grew corn, marshelder, maygrass, and lambsquarters, and collected hickory nuts.