Trubowitz, Neal L. (Indiana University-Indianapolis) and Jones, James R. III
(Indiana University-Bloomington)
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY RESEARCH BY IUPUI, 1986
In 1986 the Anthropology Department of Indiana University at Indianapolis (on
the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis; IUPUI) undertook
its first fieldwork of a long range research program designed to investigate cultural
interaction and change in central Indiana between A.D. 1400-1850, particularly
the effects of Euroamerican and Native American contact in the Lafayette area
of Tippetanoe County, Indiana. The Wabash River was the settlement center for
several different tribes in the eighteenth century, which attracted the French,
who established Fort Ouiatenon among the Indian villages. The 1986 field research
undertook floodplain reconnaissance on the north and south sides of the river,
recording 18 new sites (six of which had historic components), revisited two previously
known historic sites, and began testing the largest known Wea village, site 12T6.
This work, designed to provide data for a National Register of Historic Places
eligibility determination, included intensive surface collection transects, a
proton magnetometer survey, and excavation units one meter square in size. This
work produced encouraging evidence of features surviving below the plowzone in
cultivated portions of the site, cultural debris buried over 80 cm below flood
deposits in the overgrown portion of the site, and a wide range of artifacts of
both native and imported manufacture. These remains were found both on the surface
and buried in association with abundant well preserved faunal remains. Several
prehistoric components spanning the Late Archaic through Late Woodland periods
were also identified within the site. Future research will return to the 12T6
Wea site, continue reconnaissance between the mouth of the Tippeoanoe River downstream
to Big Pine Creek, and if conditions permit will eventually move on to excavations
on nearby villages of the Wea, Kickapoo, Mascouten, etc., and the ethnically diverse
communities of Kethtippecanuck and Prophetstown. The Ouiatenon-Kethtippecanuck
Study Group has been created and opened to any interested persons to promote site
preservation and coordination of interdisciplinary research in the region.
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