Paleoindians lived on this land as early as ten thousand years ago. Paleoindians is a term used by scholars to describe the first peoples to enter and inhabit the Americas. They are best known for their large Clovis spear points and for their big game hunting. Paleoindians were followed by hunter-gatherers of the Archaic Periods. Their cultures and lifeways changed over time in response to a rapidly transitioning natural environment.[1]

However, it is the people of the Woodland Period and Mississippian Period who have captured our imaginations with the great earthworks they left behind.[2] These groups are often referred to as the Mound Builders.

The height of the Woodland period was about 200 B.C. to A.D. 600. In this era, inhabitants of the region constructed numerous complex earthworks and large burial mounds on the landscape. Extensive earthworks are present along the Ohio River valley, many of which functioned as ceremonial centers or burial sites. These sites provide evidence of a complex society. Large geometric earthworks were often accompanied by an elaborate funerary complex where individuals were buried with exotic grave goods.[3]

Technological changes occurred toward the end of the Woodland Period. Around 600 A.D., the introduction of the bow and arrow fundamentally transformed hunting. This technology also marks the appearance of the first true “arrowheads” in Indiana.[4] Cultivation intensified as well, with crops we still grow today, such as corn, also called maize, beans, and squash. As this happened, cultural life shifted from larger villages to smaller, more dispersed, habitation sites scattered across the landscape.[5]

The last Precontact era, the Mississippian Period, occurred from around A.D. 1000 to 1650 and was mostly concentrated along the Ohio River in Indiana. In southern Indiana, the Angel Mounds Site, a National Historic Landmark on the Ohio River, presently covers about one hundred acres and has eleven earthen mounds with a large open plaza.[6]

Angel Mounds was a palisaded community that is theorized by some to have had a hierarchical, or stratified, population. This community structure may have been similar to other Mississippian groups, like those located near present-day St. Louis.[7] As many as one thousand people may have once lived in the community. The site’s largest mound, a three-terraced, flat-topped mound located at the center of the town, rose forty-four feet and could have been viewed by the entire community.[8] Palisades—walls of wooden stakes around the perimeter of the town—provided a barrier for protection or to delineate space. Maize farmers from outlying areas likely sought safety within the town’s walls during times of conflict, or came to join in seasonal ceremonial gatherings. For reasons still unknown, the population at Angel Mounds declined, and the large city center was abandoned.[9]

In other areas of southwestern Indiana, Mississippian people settled in small, unfortified villages and farmsteads.[10] This phase was complex and is not easily generalized, since it overlaps in time with European exploration and expansion. Archaeologists have recovered brass items that were associated with European trade. These brass items indicate either direct or indirect regional tribal exchange (that is traded between

individuals).[11] Entering the historic period, outbreaks of epidemic disease and the replacement of local implements by trade goods make it difficult to track demographic changes or movements. However, many scholars believe that artifacts from this late prehistoric period were associated with the Central-Algonquian speaking peoples.[12]

The mystery of the Mississippian and each of these Precontact peoples is that they possessed distinct cultural traits, some of which we infer through the artifacts left behind and others of which are only known through tradition. These indigenous people walked the same land through which I-69 travels, but lived in a very different natural and cultural environment.