Living at Angel Mounds

On the floodplains of the Ohio River in southwest Indiana, Indigenous people built a group of 11 earthen mounds and an accompanying town. Ancestors of Tribal Nations with ties to the Midwest visited and lived their lives in this place, with many laid to rest there in the same earth used for building and farming. From 1,000 to 600 years ago, a thriving city stood on this land, built by innovative and diverse people. They founded this monumental fortified city at the center of a regional network of settlements consisting of large villages and towns established along major river valleys of the Midwest between about 1100 CE and 1450 CE. Local people were skilled maize farmers and architects who carefully planned and built settlements; constructed earthen platforms to view lunar, solar, and celestial movements; and shared in extended trading and ceremonial systems. In addition to the mounds, the residents built houses and structures; grew, gathered, and hunted food; and supported skilled craftspeople who manufactured tools and goods to accomplish these goals and for trade with others. Ultimately, the ancestors prepared the site for closure by removing the site's structures and placing a final layer of sediment, or a “cap,” on the mounds. After its closing some 600 years ago, Angel Mounds was revisited periodically by Indigenous people, but the land was not fully inhabited again until the arrival of Euro-American settlers. Today, this significant landscape is known as Angel Mounds State Historic Site and designated a National Historic Landmark. Since the late nineteenth century, the scientific pursuit of understanding the history of the site has caused harm to the original inhabitants and their descendants. The goal of this article is to introduce readers not to the site but to the people who built, lived on, and were buried there, to honor them and their story.