Trubowitz, Neal L. (Department of Anthropology, Indiana University- Indianapolis
)
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY RESEARCH BY IU-INDIANAPOLIS, 1987
In 1987 the Anthropology Department of Indiana University at Indianapolis (IU-I)
undertook its second year of 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 Euro-American and native American contact
in the Lafayette area of Tippecanoe County, Indiana.
The field research comprised floodplain reconnaissance on the south side of the
Wabash river, in the vicinity of the Wea village, 12 T 6, and on the north side
of the river 25 km upstream around the village of Kethtippecanunk, 12 T 59. Several
new prehistoric and historic loci were recorded, and testing was continued On
the Wea village, site 12 T 6. This work, designed to provide data for a National
Register of Historic Places eligibility determination, included intensive surface
collection, proton magnetometer survey, and excavation of test units one meter
square in size. A wide range of artifacts of both native and imported manufacture
were recovered both on the surface and buried in association with abundant well
preserved faunal remains. (see Figure 6)
Fieldwork at Kethtippecanunk included both surface and proton magnetometer survey,
with very encouraging results from both techniques, despite overgrown site conditions.
The fieldwork has continued this fall at the Wea village and we anticipate returning
both to it and Kethtippecanunk next spring and summer, and to extend our work
onto the bluffs behind the Wea village.
In conjunction with the work on the native American occupations, an inventory
has been started on the collections from Ft. Ouiatenon loaned to IU-I by the Glenn
A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology at IU-Bloomington, Most of the previously cataloged
materials have been inventoried and initial analysis has begun. A trip was made
to the Fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia to compare ceramics from Ouiatenon
to materials recovered there. All of the types from Ouiatenon were represented
at Louisbourg, including earthenwares from France, Italy, New England, and Great
Britain, stonewares from France and the Rhineland, and porcelain from China. [return to 1987 abstracts menu][return
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