Category: Oliver’s Woods

Part 2 of a series for Native American Heritage Month

Archeological records reveal the presence of very early residents on what is now Oliver’s Woods. Thanks to the Indiana Historical Society, we know that around 1060 AD, Late Woodland people lived at the site. (“Woodland” is the name archeologists use to classify a period of North American pre-Columbian cultures from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in eastern North America.)

This discovery predates the land trust’s involvement with the property. In 1959, according to the Indiana Historical Society, American Aggregates Corporation was contracted to remove gravel at the site. The site had been on the radar of Indiana archaeologists since the 1930s. So the IHS requested to salvage artifacts before the gravel was mined.

Amazingly, the contractors halted operations and did not resume until 1965, allowing over half a decade for the archeological exploration.

The Bowen site, as it was known then, lay on the north bank of the White River’s west fork. The dig revealed evidence of a settlement about 100 yards away from the river’s edge. Pottery analysis indicated that the site was occupied by people with mixed cultural characteristics of Late Woodland and other late prehistoric peoples. Most likely they were seasonal occupants of the land, feeding themselves by growing maize, fishing, musseling, hunting, and foraging.

While the site was disturbed by 100 years of plowing, the archeologists salvaged tools made of bone, stone, and antler. Artifacts made of mussel shell, burned clay, and copper also provided hints of what life was like here in the 11^th century.

Tree species that predominated mirrored those of today’s floodplain forest: silver maple, sycamore, American elm, cottonwood, hackberry, cork elm, box elder, black willow, white ash, and red elm. The understory featured small trees like hawthorn and hop hornbeam, as well as shrubs like elderberry, spicebush, wahoo, and pawpaw.

Animal remains found on the site included species one might expect: an abundance of deer and turkey, as well as many raccoons, squirrels, mice, and woodchucks. A small number of box turtles and snapping turtles were present. Intriguingly, 32 dogs were among the remains.

The site also revealed evidence of mammals no longer found in the region—17 elks, six black bears, four gray wolves, and even one mountain lion—and of birds that have gone extinct (three passenger pigeons).

The researchers suspect that the site was the seasonal home for 50 people for three to five years, or perhaps 100 over a generation, around the year 1060 AD.

There was no evidence of house structures, but the dig revealed refuse pits, burned areas, and several burials. In fact, the archeological team discovered and studied nearly 40 human remains.

It can be disturbing to look at the past through the lens of the present, knowing that academic researchers were unearthing and analyzing human bones from the land that is now Oliver’s Woods. This is also part of the history of the property, and Native American Heritage Month prompts us to honor and recognize these early dwellers.

We hope to keep broadening our understanding of the original people whose lives were bound up in these places, and to honor them along the way.

More about the Bowen site can be found here, including a photograph of reconstructed pottery. 

Shawndra Miller

Communications Manager

smiller@conservingindiana.org

317.370.2464

Shawndra is in charge of sharing our story and connecting you to our work. Through our print and online materials, she hopes to inspire your participation in protecting special places for future generations.

Part 1 of a series for Native American Heritage Month

When we talk about CILTI nature preserves, we often focus on very recent history. We note names of individuals or families who had the foresight to work with the conservation community. We are indebted to all those who contributed to the effort to permanently protect these special places.

However, we know that the history of land stretches back so much farther. The tribal nations, people whose lives were inextricably linked to the land, often go unmentioned.

Myaamia were early stewards of much of our service area here in Central Indiana. The anglicized name for this tribe is the Miami Nation.

The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma notes that Myaamia means “the Downstream People,” reflecting the riverine origins of the tribe’s history.

According to Scott Shoemaker, a member of the Miami Tribe, the tribe’s origin story references a confluence along the St. Joseph River. The ancestors emerged from the river and grasped tree limbs to pull themselves out. “We became the Miami people through this transition of lifting ourselves out of the river,” he said during a recent interview.

The exact place is unknown. It may have been the St. Joseph confluence with the Elkhart River or with Lake Michigan in Benton Harbor, MI. From there, the people moved down the Wabash River valley and built communities at major confluences from Fort Wayne southwest to Vincennes.

Shoemaker, who is the former curator of Native American art, history, and culture at the Eiteljorg Museum, appeared on a recent White River Alliance podcast. He joined George Ironstrack, citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, who serves as assistant director of education in the Myaamia Center at Miami University.

Ironstrack noted that the Myaamia began to cede their homelands in the 1790s. For the next 50 years, they were forced west of the Mississippi, a removal that fragmented the people. About 150 people were allowed to remain in Indiana while many more were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory (now Kansas). Eventually they were forced to move again, into present-day Oklahoma, while some stayed behind in Kansas.

This forced removal unfolded alongside the altering of land and water, as wetlands across the region were drained, rivers channelized, forests clearcut, and canals dug. Colonization caused irreparable harm both to the native people and to the land they had stewarded since time immemorial.

The Myaamia language, which weaves relationships into place names, emphasizes how crucial water is to the people.

As Ironstrack says, “The flow of water carries living things… We live in a landscape you could call a waterscape, and the rivers are like veins or arteries moving through our homelands and our people.”

Situated as it is along the White River, it’s a safe bet that Oliver’s Woods was home to the Myaamia after the people moved south from Lake Michigan. Historians place this southward movement in the early 1700s.

But because of archeological records, we have documentation of very early residents from hundreds of years before that. In Part 2, we will explore that earlier history.

Further Exploration:

History of the Miami People (Miami Nation of Oklahoma website)

A Myaamia Beginning, by George Ironstrack

Miami Nation of Indiana 

Shawndra Miller

Communications Manager

smiller@conservingindiana.org

317.370.2464

Shawndra is in charge of sharing our story and connecting you to our work. Through our print and online materials, she hopes to inspire your participation in protecting special places for future generations.