In 1992 and 1993 the Archaeological Resources Management Service (ARMS) of Ball State University in conjunction with the Upper White River Archaeological Society (UWRAS) conducted limited research of Windsor Mound located in Randolph County, Indiana. The project consisted of obtaining accurate profiles of an amateur excavation that began in 1986 and backfilling the excavation. This thesis provides a synthesis of the previous studies on Windsor Mound, an analysis of the materials recovered and the results of the limited UWRAS/ARMS excavations. / Department of Anthropology

Archaeological investigations rarely focus on streets and street related features. This thesis adds to the literature on this topic by discussing the archaeological excavation of the James F.D. Lanier State Historic Site. The excavation explored the integrity of First Street and its related components. Phosphate testing was also utilized to aid the identification of early street surfaces. The excavation revealed massive disturbance of the street due to landscaping activities. Possible street surfaces as well as intact features such as a section of concrete, streetside rain gutter, brick sidewalk, and fence base stones revealed that not all was destroyed. / Department of Anthropology

The goal of this thesis research is to examine the Patty Ann Farms site using noninvasive techniques, such as a magnetic gradiometer. The Patty Ann Farms site, 12H1169, located in northeastern Hamilton County Indiana, is a multicomponent archaeological site spanning all periods of prehistory. Diagnostic artifacts from the Paleo-Indian, Archaic, and Woodland periods have been surface collected by the land owner. The land owner’s collection was documented, and the site was recorded at the Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology--Department of Natural Resources, in 2004. Since then, a controlled surface survey has been conducted identifying three areas of high artifact density and preliminary soil phosphate tests have been conducted. / Department of Anthropology

During the nineteenth century, Indiana was home to nearly two dozen agricultural communities comprised of primarily African American residents. These short lived communities represented one of the few contexts in which both African American and non-African American groups lived and worked together within a viable rural community. By analyzing one such settlement, this study presents a basis for comparative functional analysis at the household level through the use of pattern identification of material culture. This study utilized both probate inventory assessments of the period and archeological material within the same classification scheme. Advantages and disadvantages of both data sources are also presented. While the data between the two groups showed little differentiation concerning household material composition, slight differences, particularly at the class level, was evident. These differences may have been based in socio-economic concerns or may have exhibited active consumer choice, reflecting minute aspects of cultural identity. / Department of Anthropology

Presented in this thesis is the human osteological analysis of the cremation burials from ten Early Archaic features excavated at the McCullough's Run Site (12-B-1036) located in the eastern portion of Columbus, Bartholemew County, Indiana. The analysis of burials excavated from the McCullough's Run Site, one of the few Early Archaic Cemeteries found in the United States to date, add data that serve to clarify and expand our understanding of the Early Archaic in Indiana. / Department of Anthropology

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Research conducted during 2011 and 2012 at the Mississippian site of Angel Mounds outside of Evansville, IN sheds light on an often overlooked portion of the site that falls outside of the palisade wall – the 3rd Terrace. Through a magnetometer survey, a shovel test survey, and a reanalysis of a 1939 legacy collection from the 3rd Terrace, new interpretations about this peripheral area of the site will help to expand our ideas about Mississippian daily life in a wider geographic area and may help to better understand a transitional period in the history of Angel Mounds. In addition to the creation of a magnetic survey for use by the Angel Mounds State Historic Site, the use of minimally invasive and non-invasive research methods paired with previously excavated and curated collections allows for new research to be conducted with minimal disturbance to the archaeological site. While this research is a preliminary investigation of the archaeological potential for the 3rd Terrace, it also provides a solid basis for future research in the area and contributes to the wider understanding of Angel Mounds and the Mississippian world.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / A foreign concept to most twenty-first century individuals, a saddletree provides support and acts as the framework to saddles, giving saddlers a base on which to add cushioning, stretch leather, and create beautiful or functional saddles. Saddletree factories were an integral part of Madison, Indiana’s late nineteenth-century economy. As one of the Ohio River town’s leading industries, saddletree shops employed approximately 125 men during 1879, Madison’s peak saddletree production year, and made Madison a national center of saddletree production. However, the industry faded into oblivion as the beginning of the twentieth century, leaving the men drawn to these shops in the 1870s and 1880s to find new opportunities. While past historians contributed to the fields of industrial and economic history by studying large industries engaged in mass production in major urban areas, Madison’s saddletree workers represent a view of nineteenth-century specialized production. This thesis examines the saddletree industry’s place in Madison during the late nineteenth century and the lives of saddletree workers during and after the industry’s peak. My findings, based off extensive digital research and tools utilized in earlier social mobility studies, create a nuanced view of Madison’s relationship to the saddletree industry, saddletree makers, and what the industry’s collapse meant to saddletree factory employees.