This thesis will explore the significance of a cache of Late Archaic lithics found in Randolph County, Indiana by Bobby Manning. These points, thought to mostly be of the McWhinney Heavy Stemmed type are unique in that very few caches of these points have found been in such good condition in unmixed contexts. The McWhinney Heavy Stemmed point, as currently defined, is not well represented in the archaeological record. Point typology is important to archaeology because point types indicate the age and cultural affiliation of most surface sites. Point typologies, then, require accurate description of good samples from unmixed contexts. By presenting background data concerning the McWhinney Heavy Stemmed point and known morphological correlates this thesis aims to provide a better description of the point type. Also this data, coupled with the data from the Manning cache is used to produce results that determine the significance of the cache and determine if this isolated cache reflects a new variant in the McWhinney type or, if justified, a new type altogether. / Department of Anthropology

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study examines the history of Indian-settler legal relations in Indiana, from the state’s pre-territorial period to the late-nineteenth century. Through a variety of interdisciplinary sources and methods, the author constructs a broad narrative on the evolution and co-existence of Native and non-Native customary legal systems in the region, focusing on matters related to marriage, property rights, and testimony. The primary thesis—which emphasizes reciprocally formative relations, rather than persistent conflict—suggests that Indiana’s pre-modern legal past involved an ad hoc yet highly effective process of cultural brokerage, reciprocity and inter-personal accommodation. That the American Indians lost much of their self-governing status following the period of contact is clear; however, a closer look at the ways in which nations historically defined, exercised, asserted, and shared jurisdiction, reveals a more intricate story of influence, authority, and concession. During the French and British colonial and American territorial periods, settler society adjusted to and often accommodated Native concepts of law and justice. Through a complex order of social obligations and community-based enforcement mechanisms, a shared set of rules and jurisdictional practices merged, forming a hybrid system of Indian-settler norms that bound these individuals across the cultural divide. When Indiana entered the Union in 1816, legal pluralism defined jurisdictional practice. However, with the nineteenth-century rise of legal positivism—the idea of law as the sole command of the nation-state, a sovereign entity vested with exclusive authority—territorial jurisdiction and legal uniformity became guiding principles. Many jurists viewed the informal, pre-existing custom-based regulatory structures with contempt. With the shift to a state-centered legal order, lawmakers established strict standards for recognizing the law of the “other,” ultimately rejecting the status of the tribes as equal sovereigns and forcing them to concede jurisdiction to the settler polity.

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.