Photo by Chris Meyer IUPUI seniors Kendra Bryant (left) and Tracey Smarsh sift through excavated material in search of artifacts from a site near the IUPUI campus.

September is Indiana Archaeology Month, a time for professional archaeologists, students, historians and hobbyists to celebrate Indiana's rich heritage. This year marks the 10th anniversary for the state-sponsored designation. From prehistoric Angel Mounds near Evansville to Hamilton County's Strawtown and the downtown Indianapolis neighborhood of Ransom Place, Indiana University students and faculty are helping uncover Indiana's past.

Here's a quick look at their summer excavations:

IUPUI excels at community archaeology

Six years after first coming to IUPUI, anthropology professor Paul Mullins is still amazed at the opportunity to connect the campus neighborhood with its past, while introducing a new generation to the people that came before.

"There's a lot of complex history to know. Most of my students drive on campus everyday, and they have no idea they are in the middle of what once was a huge neighborhood," Mullins said during a mid-morning break at the field school's excavation site just blocks from IUPUI's campus. "It [the neighborhood] was here in the 1960s; now it's E Lot, part of campus. It's all asphalt."

Archaeology goes high tech at IPFW

Undergraduates enrolled in IPFW's first-ever geophysical methods field school found an opportunity to learn the complexities of high-tech equipment normally reserved for graduate research.

"It's pretty traditional to take undergraduates out and learn excavation techniques. That's pretty common; but teaching undergraduates geophysical survey--that's what makes this a pretty unique program," said Robert McCullough, director of IPFW's Archaeological Survey and director of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) field school.

The IPFW project is one of two field school's the Fort Wayne campus organizes, both based at the Strawtown archaeological research park in Hamilton County.

Angel Mounds excavation is first in more than a decade

Staffan Peterson has spent many days and weeks during the last several years roaming the fields at Angel Mounds collecting data. The tedious task of taking readings from a magnetometer--a portable device archeologists use to locate metal deposits--is helping Peterson generate detailed maps of this prehistoric archaeological site near Evansville.

Peterson's current research at Angel Mounds is based on research compiled by archaeologist Glenn Black who started excavations at Angel Mounds in 1939 and continued through the 1960s. One of the theories Peterson would like to study is whether or not the civilization, which is believed to have been settled around 1100 AD, started large and then was scaled back. Or, did the settlement start with a few people and expand its scope, thus creating a need to build a larger exterior barricade?

Editor's note: The July issue of "IU Home Pages" contains the full-length articles and photo essays on IU's field schools.

http://homepages.indiana.edu/072205

For additional information on Indiana Archaeology Month, contact Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, 402 W. Washington St., Rm 274, Indianapolis, IN 46204-2739; Phone 317-232-1646 or Web site at

http://www.IN.gov/dnr/historic/archeomonth.html