Broken pieces of pottery, animal bones and discarded tools were trash to Native Americans hundreds of years ago, but the materials in Hamilton County are an archaeological pot of gold for students from Ball State University.

Students participating in the archaeological field school, sponsored by Ball State's Department of Anthropology, have located nearly 50 pre-Columbian archaeological sites on 200 acres of farmland in the flood plain along the White River in Hamilton County.

Until recent heavy rains stopped their work, students unearthed several large, circular pits that had been filled with trash from the area's original occupants on what is now Koteewi Park.

"We found the site two years ago and quickly realized it was intriguing because of all the artifacts, some of which were right on the surface," said Beth McCord, assistant director for research for Ball State's Archaeological Resource Management Service. "We have found a great deal of material that will tell us more about the people who lived there centuries ago."

The summer field school is being funded, in part, by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund administered by the Division of Historical Preservation and Archaeology of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

Eleven students spent several weeks in May and June recording the archaeological sites and testing a part of one site. A magnetometer survey of the excavated site revealed many features, but the students were only able to excavate 11 of them. The features were large, circular oval pits about three feet wide and three feet deep.

Don Cochran, director of the archaeological service, believes the site will improve the understanding of the transition to dependence on corn horticulture. The time period for the transitional phase is somewhere from 1000 to 1300 A.D.

"This is about the time we think that corn became the dominant food source for these people," he said. "At that point, they began to settle down and raise more crops. The pits on the site show that some were used for cooking, but other uses are not yet known."

Cochran believes the Strawtown site, which is being developed as a park and recreations area by the Hamilton County parks department, may be the literal "crossroads of America," which is also the Indiana state motto.

"There also is evidence that the Strawtown area was a transitional or boundary region for peoples from the east and the west," he said. "We seem to have an area that attracted people that were culturally linked with the Great Lakes, Ohio and other parts of Indiana." 

When the site drains of water within the next few weeks, students will return to continue excavation of the pits and proceed with the analysis of the materials in the holes.

(Note to Editors: For more information, contact Cochran at dcochran@bsu.edu or (765) 285-5328. McCord may be reached at bmcord@bsu.edu or (765) 285-5328.)