INDIANA UNIVERSITY PURDUE UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS

COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING Administration Building, Suite 136 355 N. Lansing Street Indianapolis, Indiana 46202-2896 317-274-7711 Fax: 317-274-5457

For Immediate Release May 18, 2001 For More Information Contact: Diane Brown, (317) 274-7711 habrown@iupui.edu

IUPUI ARCHAEOLOGY DIG TO UNEARTH CENTURY OLD CAMPUS NEIGHBORHOOD

INDIANAPOLIS - Once again anthropology students at IUPUI are busy digging up the neighborhood's past. This time, it's the past right under their feet.

Sixteen students enrolled this summer in the Ransom Place Archaeology Field School are digging pits at the gravel-covered student parking lot bordered by Michigan Street on the north, California Street on the west, Vermont on the south, and West Street on the east. In the early 1890s German-Americans and African Americans lived and worked side by side at the excavation site.

"The German-American Deschlers came to manage a meat-packing shop in their California Street backyard. Their neighbor Hattie Evans opened up her modest home and rented rooms to boarders and she and her African-American boarders did housekeeping and laundry for families throughout the city," said anthropology Assistant Professor Paul Mullins.

The Evans-Deschler site excavation is part of a project examining the cultural diversity of the many residents who once lived on what is now the IUPUI campus, the field school professor said. Virtually every European immigrant community, along with people of color and rural Caucasian Hoosiers, settled in the area, Mullins said.

The Deschler Meat Packing firm was located at the rear of the family's home at 423 California Street directly north of where the new IU School of Law-Indianapolis building now stands. The Evans boarding house stood within three feet of the walls of the meat-packing firm.

"We expect to find everyday refuse from these two homes and the meat-packing shop," Mullins said.

Students enrolled in the field school last year excavated a site located in the Ransom Place Historic District. That project unearthed more than 10,000 artifacts dating from 1890 to the present, including a Cracker Jack toy that drew international media attention to the project.

This summer Mullins and his students are conducting the Evans-Deschler excavation in advance of the bulldozers and soil scrapers that will start preparing the area for construction projects.

Thousands of homes that once stood south of Indiana Avenue survive today as archeological sites, mostly covered by parking lots and other IUPUI campus spaces.

"As a university, we literally own the vast majority of the neighborhood now, so we are taking advantage of this and conducting research in advance of construction projects that will destroy potentially interesting or even unique archaeological sites," the professor said. "The university is committed to expansion that fulfills our practical needs and considers the preservation of city history."

Students involved in the dig are learning archaeological field and lab techniques and are developing an understanding of the methods and approaches by which historians construct archaeological knowledge. They are at work at the site from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. Monday - Friday, weather permitting. Visitors are welcome throughout the project that will run through June 20.

Volunteers are also invited to work alongside students after May 21.Volunteers are asked to call ahead and advised that it is best to work a whole excavation day at the site. Parents must accompany volunteers under 16. For details about volunteering, interested individuals can call (317) 274-9847.

###

Return to IUPUI Home