An Introduction to the Prehistory of Indiana

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A formal archaeological interest in Indiana prehistory can be identified at least as early as 1827, but the long-term commitment to the study of this important segment of the state's past is a much more recent accomplishment. For example, it was not until 1931 that a full-time archaeologist was employed by a state institution, the Indiana Historical Society, and it would be more than a decade later before American archaeology would be added to university curricula: Indiana University (1944), Ball State University (1964), Indiana State University (1964), University of Notre Dame (1970). and lUPUI-Fort Wayne (1981). Purdue University has an archaeological program, but North America is not a part of its concentration.

Until about 1928, the concern for area prehistory was largely antiquarian in nature and lacked consistent institutional support. What survives from that earlier era is fragmentary and often tantalizing but is inevitably meager. Nevertheless, these early published accounts constitute an interesting and often useful record, not just concerning the sites themselves, but as they reflect the more general developments leading to contemporary archaeology. Therefore, it is useful to consider briefly the history of archaeology in Indiana before proceeding to the summary of current knowledge (see also Black 1961; Michael 1976; Ruegamer 1980).

As a consequence of the Ordinance of 1787, portions of what were to become Indiana were first investigated by deputy United States surveyors. It was one of their tasks to establish the land survey system that continues to be employed to the present. In addition to establishing section lines and corners, they were ordered to assess the developmental potential of the lands traversed by noting both natural and cultural features. Among these latter were archaeological sites and other evidence of Indian utilization. For example, "Bone Bank," a large prehistoric village located about ten miles above the mouth of the Wabash River in Posey County, is described. Already under attack by the meandering river in the very early part of the nineteenth century, only scattered bits of cultural debris survive to mark its presence today. However, when it was first noted, the abundance of shell, human and animal bone, pottery, and other materials exposed on the riverbank drew the attention of river travelers, for whom the site served as a convenient and oft-described landmark.

The Robert Owen purchase of New Harmony brought with it the well-known "Boat Load of Knowledge" and an interval when some of the first reasonably systematic archaeology was undertaken in the United States. Among the scientific and socially conscious individuals at New Harmony in the 1820s was Charles Alexander Lesueur, a French naturalist and artist. Intrigued ~bythe evidence for earlier settlement in the area, he initiated excavation of a few of the mounds nd noted that some had already been dug into at that early date. His work has been evaluated s follows (Black 1961 :52-53):

. . . the important thing about Lesueur's work is that he excavated correctly! He kept notes and made sketches. He recognized important interior features. He

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made mineralogical identification of the stones used by the aborigines for artifact fabrication. He attempted to place these lithic materials in their proper time perspective by assigning them to the geological levels from which they had been quarried. He attempted to make comparisons and interpretations from the crania and other human skeletal parts which he found or were made available to him. He gave a detailed description of "Bone Bank" and described material from there in such a way that we can identify . . . Middle Mississippi.

As late as 1831 archaeological investigations were conducted by the New Harmony interest group, and in 1833 artifacts collected there were returned to Europe by Maximilian, Prince of Wied (1906:172-78), who was engaged in a trip to the source of the Missouri River.

This period of intense archaeological activity in New Harmony does not appear to have engendered a continuing concern or more extensive interest in the innumerable sites in the area or beyond. Local newspapers throughout the growing state sometimes carried accounts of accidental discoveries or reported on weekend digs by local citizens, but much of what must have been discovered is unknowable. The New Harmony interest group, though one of the earliest of its kind in the eastern United States, did not make a lasting contribution to a better understanding of state prehistory.

The many large and intricate earthwork complexes and the impressive assemblage of artifacts recovered from burial mounds in southern Ohio generated substantial interest and field activity in that state at a relatively early date. An inability to relate the finds to the cultures of the known American Indians in the area gave rise to many fanciful interpretations. some of which have been remarkably persistent. One that can be encountered to this day is that the earthworks were constructed by an unusually cultured group of "Mound Builders,'' who were subsequently driven out by the American Indian, a culturally inferior society. Silverberg (1968) has written a highly readahle account of these interpretive controversies.

While much work was going on in Ohio, Indiana sites, though some were of equal size and complexity, if not in numbers, did not receive comparable attention. For example, the important early survey by Ephraim G. Squier and Edward H. Davis reported in Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Vu/ley (1848) makes reference only to a group of earthworks in the extreme eastern portion of the state in Randolph County (Pl. XXXIII). The authors were apparently unaware of the more striking earthwork complexes nearby in the vicinity of Anderson and New Castle.

Much of the impetus for a more substantial interest in state archaeology must be credited to the Indiana Geological Survey. Beginning with its founding in 1869, the Survey had as a primary objective the assessment of economically important mineral resources in each of the counties in the state; but the individual geologists often had broad interests in natural and cultural history as well. Hence, the county geological surveys published during the last decades of the nineteenth century commonly included descriptions of the more notable Indian sites and other information of interest to prehistorians, i.e., chert. Edward J. Cox, John Collett, Sylvester Gorby, Moses Elrod. and Dr. Rufus Haymond all contributed to this effort.

It was during this same period that a few Indiana sites occupied the attention of archaeologists with national reputations. Frederick W. Putnam, director, Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, visited a "fortified" site in Sullivan County accompanied by geologists Collett and Cox. Some excavation was accomplished and Putnam subsequently published two reports concerning the work at the Merom Site (1871, 1872).

In 1882, Cyrus Thomas was placed in charge of a monumental federal archaeological program

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funded by the Bureau of American Ethnology, the purpose of which was to resolve once and for all time the cultural and historical problems posed by the numerous mounds in the eastern United States and. particularly. what group was responsible for their construction. Information was accumulated in Washington, D C., from published and personal sources, and individuals were sent into the field to do surveys and undertake excavations. Even at this time federal programs were viewed with suspicion and many nonarchaeological problems impeded the progress of the project, but much of lasting value was accumulated. Thomas's Catalogue of Prehistoric Works East of the Rocky Mountains (1891) lists many sites in Indiana, though the listing is largely a compilation derived from Indiana Geological Survey reports with the addition of information trom local informants. The Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Thomas 1894), a major project publication, published the first map of Angel Site (Vanderburgh County) and described some of the features at the site (556-60). Also discussed were contexts in LaPorte (555), Knox (556), and Sullivan (555-56) counties.

Perhaps the first major excavation in Indiana for which notes and collections are yet available occurred in the fall of 1898, in Posey County at the "Mouth of the Wabash " site. The field work was accomplished by Clifford Anderson under the direction of Warren K. Moorehead, a pioneer figure in the history of archaeology and an individual who was to play a critical role in Indiana archaeology at a later date. Support for the work was provided by the Robert S. Peabody Foundation. Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. The results of the project were significant, and a substantial collection of artifacts and other data was recovered (Moorehead 1906: 62-86: Adams 1949:25-47; Green and C. Munson 1978:293-330). The notes and collections are maintained in the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, Indiana University, Bloomington.

Somewhat later, that inveterate archaeological traveler, C. B. Moore, sent his agents into southwestern Indiana to determine whether there were sites sufficiently important to warrant his attention. There being none, only a large platform mound was recorded (Moore 1916:491).

Though Indiana archaeological sites received some notice from institutions outside the state and a few papers appeared in publications having a national distribution, much of the accomplishment during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was reported in local sources, i.e.. county histories, geological surveys, and Indiana Academy of Science Proceedings. Since problems of chronology and cultural groupings had not been addressed in any substantial fashion at this time, most of the reports were necessarily descriptive in nature and dealt with individual sites or noteworthy discoveries. The Hoosier Mineralogist and Archaealogist provided a publication outlet, and the Indiana Academy of Science offered a forum for interested parties.

Except for Ohio where archaeology had a long history of institutional support, Indiana's situation was not unlike that in its neighboring states. But the situation was to change.

In 1918, the National Research Council through its Division of Anthropology and Psychology, recognizing the fragmented nature of archaeology in the United States, determined to stimulate the creation of state programs. The aims were to encourage local groups to take the initiative in assessing site resources, provide programmatic advice as to how this might best be accomplished, and sponsor regional conferences in order to bring together state archaeological leaders to discuss shared interests. In Indiana, the program was introduced at a meeting of the Indiana Academy of Science in 1920 by Amos W. Butler, an Academy director, who had had a long interest in state prehistory. During the decade a number of state organizations co-operated at various times on a number

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of projects. Foremost among these was the Indiana Historical Commission, later to become the Indiana Historical Bureau, an agency of state government. In 1926 the Indiana Historical Society established an archaeological section chaired by William R. Teel. Representatives from the section attended a number of regional meetings, reviewed the programs in other states, assisted in gaining financial support for work in Indiana, and ultimately provided the organizational framework for employing a professional staff.

The first modern excavation was that undertaken at the Albee Mound in Sullivan County in 1926 and 1927 (MacLean 1927, 1931). The work was directed by J. Arthur MacLean, director of the John Herron Art Institute, and supported by the Division of Geology of the State Department of Conservation, Indiana Historical Society, Indiana Historical Bureau, and private donors. The mound was not an artificially constructed tumulus but a natural elevation in which a number of prehistoric burials had been placed; the excavation succeeded in identifying one of the major cultural complexes in the Wabash Valley.

There were no educational institutions in Indiana training archaeologists in the late 1920s and few anywhere in the United States for that matter, but the University of Chicago had initiated such a program. Therefore, the first professional archaeologists to be employed by the Indiana groups were graduate students from that program. In 1928 and 1929, Frank M. Setzler, later to become Curator of Anthropology, United States National Museum, carried on survey and excavation in southeastern Indiana in the Whitewater Valley (Setzler 1930, 1931). This area was chosen because of its nearness to the state of Ohio and the suggestion that some of the sites in the valley were related to the spectacular earthworks there. In the following years, Fred Eggan and J. Gilbert Allison undertook similar projects in Hamilton, Marion, Morgan, and Porter counties (McAllister 1932). However, as productive and promising as these projects were in identifying sites and arousing public interest, they did not immediately result in obtaining the services of a trained archaeologist on a full-time basis but represented only seasonal activities.

The individual primarily responsible for the creation and maintenance of the modern program in state archaeology was Eli Lilly. The archaeologist who directed the program was Glenn A. Black.(Ruegamer 1980: 255-97 provides a detailed account of Lilly-Black and state archaeology.)

Lilly's interest in archaeology was initially stimulated by a visit with an artifact collector near his summer home at Lake Wawasee. Impressed with the craftsmanship represented by the objects on display and desiring to learn more about them, he began to attend the few meetings on the subject, assembled an archaeological library, and through an agent, began to accumulate an artifact collection with emphasis on Indiana materials. Also, when a burial was discovered near Lake Wawasee, he undertook an excavation of the site (Lilly 1942). In order to further expand his knowledge of the new avocation, he assembled and published a bibliography of Indiana archaeology (1932). These early years of reading and collecting culminated with the publication of Prehistoric Antiquities of Indiana ( 1937). This classic work detailed what was then known of Indiana prehistory, described some of the important sites, identified problem areas, further enlarged the bibliography, and made a plea for an expanded program of archaeological research and conservation in the state.

Black, though without formal training in archaeology, had begun to accumulate an artifact collection in 1926, read widely in the field, visited many sites, and devoted much of his time apart from his employment with an Indianapolis industrial firm to the pursuit of archaeology. Aware

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of the intent to create a state research program, he had volunteered his services and became known to the leaders of the effort.

Lilly and Black met in May, 1931, when the latter was invited to serve as the driver and guide for a party making a tour of some of the better-known archaeological sites in the state. Among those making the trip, in addition to Lilly, was Warren K. Moorehead, then director of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology, Andover, Massachusetts. As a leader of the archaeological community, his counsel was sought by the eager but inexperienced Indiana archaeological committee. Sites visited in early May included the large earthworks complex in Mounds State Park near Anderson, the fortified site near Merom, Bone Bank in Posey County, and Angel Mounds near Evansville. It was an informative trip for the participants and had significant consequences for the directions taken by the fledgling Indiana program.

First. Moorehead was sufficiently impressed with Black's knowledge and apparent abilities to recommend him to Lilly for an archaeological position. Therefore, almost immediately upon the conclusion of the venture, Black was employed. [figure 1] The appointment was initially with the Indiana Historical Bureau, but he was transferred to the Indiana Historical Society within a few months. For most of the thirty-three years he held the position, he was the only archaeologist in the state. Along with the research program he directed, he spoke extensively to lay groups, was a founder and officer in the Society for American Archaeology. the professional organization for New

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World prehistorians, and beginning in 1944, taught in the Department of Anthropology, Indiana University.

A second consequence of the 1931 field trip concerned Angel Mounds, a large late prehistoric stockaded town located in the floodplain of the Ohio River in Vanderburgh County. Each member of the party was impressed with this well-preserved 100-acre site, the several platform mounds, rhe stockade remnants, and the abundance of cultural debris that littered the surface of the plowed field. Moorehead, who had directed excavations at comparable sites in Georgia (Etowah) and southwest Illinois (Cahokia), urged in conversation and by letter that Angel Mounds be preserved, both for its research potential and as a means of educating the public about the past. These suggestions by a respected and experienced archaeologist were taken seriously, and Lilly wrote a few years later in reference to the site (1937:46-48):

Here, baked in the glaring summer sun, frozen under winter snows.... is a site that the State of Indiana should rescue from oblivion, and so save to posteriety another of our pre-Columbian heritages.

In 1938, the effort to raise money from local and state sources having failed, Lilly purchased Angel Mounds in the name of the Indiana Historical Society. Glenn Black moved to a house on the property, and an association with a single archaeological site that was to span twenty-six years had begun. Throughout this period Indiana archaeology was centered in the Evansville area and much of the research energy was expended at Angel Mounds. During the years preceding World War II as many as 250 W.P.A. employees, workers supported by federally funded projects during the depression years, excavated significant sectors of the large village and one mound. Beginning in 1947, the site served as a summer archaeological field school conducted by the Indiana Historical Society and Indiana University.

Another activity generated by the Lilly-Black association had important implications for the development of anthropological research in the state and region. It centered on the interpretation of the Walam Olum, a series of mnemonic signs which reportedly were in the possession of the Delaware Indians and chronicled the movement of the Algonquian-speaking Indians from Asia into the New World. Allegedly, the record had been collected in Indiana in 1820 by Constantine S. Rafinesque. Black, after reading a paper which set out some suggestions for analyzing the time dimensions in ethnographic data, recommended to Lilly that the Walam Olum, provided there was a satisfactory translation, might serve to clarify many problems concerning the American Indian occupancy in the Ohio Valley and eastern United States. In the effort to follow up the suggestion, a multifaceted research team was assembled, including linguists, ethnologists, physical anthropologists, and archaeologists. Almost every archaeologist working in the eastern United States during the 1930s and 1940s was involved in one fashion or another, as were a number of graduate students. Also, the first anthropology department in a state institution, that established in 1947 at Indiana University, was a consequence of locating some of the project personnel in Bloomington. Also, in an effort to increase the ability of archaeologists to better understand their data, support was provided a number of ancillary activities.

In 1954, Walam Olum or Red Score, the Migration Legend of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware /ndians was published. While there remain unanswered questions concerning the authenticity of the original documents attributed to Rafinesque and the time frame proposed is not confirmed by carbon-14 dating, a method developed after the Walam Olum research had been substantially accomplished, there is no question that archaeology was positively influenced by the financial

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support and research opportunities the project afforded. Griffin (1971), summarizing Lilly's role, intellectual as well as financial, stated:

There have been other research programs in American anthropology that have been supported by individuals, but I doubt that any had the breadth of view, the variety of personnel, or the continuity of purpose and tolerance "for professional procrastination" that was always present in these endeavors. I also doubt that the patron of any other program of this nature ever participated as fully, shared discouragement with such compassion, or exulted more with each accomplishment. It was an excellent research journey for all of us and "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

The Walam Olum project, from its beginning in 1932, required a significant long-term commitment as did that at Angel Mounds; nevertheless, a broad concern with Indiana archaeology was always apparent, most of it under Black's direction. The Indiana Historical Bureau until 1957 sponsored a number of county surveys and published the results, either in the Indiana History Bulletin or as special reports. However, the Indiana Historical Society was the primary institution supporting prehistorical research. It, too, was involved in some survey programs, but also contributed to numerous excavation projects. For example, in 1934 and 1935, following a period of reconnaissance in southeastern Indiana, the Nowlin Mound, a large burial tumult located in Dearborn County, was carefully investigated. It had been the common practice to concentrate on burials and their artifact associations, largely ignoring the details of mound structure. The Nowlin Mound project, which Black directed, substantially changed that. The complex mound structure and the sequence of constructional events leading to its completion were fully documented, and there is probably no more precise description of mound architectonics in print (Black 1936). It can be read with profit by anyone interested in area prehistory.

In south-central Indiana, E. Y. Guernsey, another one of the serious amateurs who assisted in getting Indiana's program in place, excavated in a number of sites in the Jeffersonville/New Albany area.

Beginning in 1937, the Society initiated the Prehistory Research Series, an occasional publication devoted to anthropological monographs of relevance to the Indiana scene. The series includes, in addition to archaeology, studies in linguistics and ethnography.

An interest in archaeological methodology, both in the field and laboratory, was a recurrent theme of the Society's program from the beginning. It was initially manifested in the Nowlin Mound excavation. The support provided the tree-ring dating research at the University of Chicago, the lithic laboratory at the Ohio State Museum, and the University of Michigan's ceramic repository were also reflections of this methodological interest. At Angel Mounds, a doctoral candidate in botany, encouraged by Black, initiated research to demonstrate that human activities accomplished centuries before could be identified by noting changes in contemporary plant distributions (Zeiner 1946). Somewhat later, Lilly, after reading about a portable magnetometer useful for measuring minor variations in magnetic intensity in the soil that could result from human intervention, suggested its possible use at Angel Mounds to seek out houses, pits, stockade, etc. Therefore, an appropriate instrument was obtained and with the aid of two grants from the National Science Foundation, work was undertaken at the site and in the American Southwest (Johnston 1964).

The intervention of World War II in 1941 substantially brought archaeological field work to

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a close during the first half of the decade. However, in the fall of 1944, Black was appointed lecturer at Indiana University, and courses in New World prehistory were offered on a regular basis at an Indiana institution for the first time. And during the summer of 1947, the Angel Mounds archaeological field school was initiated as a co-operative effort of the Indiana Historical Society and the University. Its purpose was to provide the interested student with an opportunity to participate in field research and learn the skills associated with this part of the archaeological endeavor. It was one of the top two or three such field programs in the United States, and more than 150 students participated during its sixteen-year history, a number of whom continued in archaeology or related areas.

In 1960, Black resigned his teaching position at Indiana University in order to devote full time to the preparation of a report documenting the years of work at Angel Mounds. Angel Mounds. An Archaeological, Historical, and Ethnological Study was published posthumously in 1967 by the Indiana Historical Society, Black having died in 1964.

Because the society was the only institution in the state engaged in archaeological research and it had been such for more than thirty years, the resources accumulated were irreplaceable. Included were invaluable site records and collections as well as a research library and equipment. With Black's death, a major decision had to be made concerning the future of the program, and it was finally determined that the resources would be most useful if they were placed in a university setting. Therefore, they were transferred to Indiana University, and a grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc., made possible the construction of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology at that institution. The structure and its resources complement the teaching and research interests of the university and include a museum which is open to the public. [figure 2]

The decade of the sixties was marked by an increase in the level of support afforded Indiana archaeology in educational institutions. Indiana University, though having had part-time staff for many years, employed a full-time archaeology faculty member in 1960. Ball State University and Indiana State universities followed in 1964. The University of Notre Dame was added to the list in 1970. Most recently lUPU-Fort Wayne has hired an archaeologist with local interests. All in all, the level of ongoing work in the state has been tremendously increased in recent years.

The sixties also witnessed the beginning of a legally mandated historic preservation program in the United States, and the consequences have significantly changed the practice of archaeology. Basically, a complex of federal laws, an executive order, agency procedures, and state legislation in some instances, potentially made nearly every federal action, whether directly through funding or by reason of a permit granting authority, susceptible to review in order to determine adverse impacts on historic resources. These developments almost at once took archaeologists out of the classrooms and museums and made them consultants and professional participants in a host of construction-related activities. Rather than initiating field research, archaeologists for about the past decade have been engaged in structuring field activities that respond to industrial developments or public works projects in an effort to conserve and preserve historic sites and the information they contain.

As of this writing (1982), in addition to the universities noted above, archaeologists working in Indiana are employed by at least one environmental consulting firm, the Indiana Highway Commission, and the divisions of Reclamation and Historic Preservation and Archaeology, both in the Department of Natural Resources, all as a consequence of the preservation effort.

In 1977, the Council for the Conservation of Indiana Archaeology was formed. Composed of the professional archaeologists in the state, it is intended to co-ordinate archaeological activities

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and provide a unitary voice in matters affecting the preservation of archaeological sites and collections.

One of the more significant recent developments has been the formal organization of avocational archaeological groups in the state. The Wabash Valley Archaeological Society. Indianapolis Amateur Archaeological Association, and Northwest Indiana Archaeological Society, in addition to fostering programs that expand the knowledge and expertise of the members, cooperate with professional archaeologists in excavation projects, annual field and laboratory workshops, and joint meetings. Substantial contributions to knowledge have been made by these organizations, and the network of informants represented by the membership has played an extremely important role in conserving a portion of Indiana's past.