Field Work

The Flora Mastodon site is in northern Indiana.  It produced remains from an adult female mastodon, a giant beaver, and numerous small animals including fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals.  It also produced a bone tool, which is about 2000 years younger than the mastodon, but at 10,400 years old, is the oldest dated tool from Indiana.  The image above is of a mastodon vertebral and rib fragment.

Once thought to contain just the remains of a single women, excavations by Dr. Schmidt and UIndy faculty and students determined that 7 people were interred within a small county road median in Johnson County, Indiana.  The excavation allowed county authorities to redo the road, making it safer for travel as well as better protected for the remains re-buried in a deep crypt in the much improved median.  The photo above is the grave before the excavation.

Excavated in conjunction with archaeologists from IUPUI and Cardno Engineering, this 19th century cemetery contained just over 550 graves.  It was located on the grounds of the Indianapolis International Airport, before being moved, and completely reconstructed, at the cemetery in Indianapolis.  The photo above shows part of a row of grave shafts after remains were removed.