Archeologij in Posey and Vanderburgh Counties 121 



ARCHEOLOGY IN POSEY AND VANDERBURGH 

 COUNTIES. 



A. J. BiGNEY, Evansville College. 



Posey County is located in the extreme southwestern corner of 

 Indiana, bounded on the west by the Wabash River and on the South by 

 the Ohio River. The county has broad, low bottoms along these rivers, 

 rising gently toward the interior, with numerous hills breaking the 

 general level of the county. More than twenty lakes dot its surface, 

 Hovey Lake, which is circular and about one mile in diameter, being 

 the largest. 



Vanderburgh County lies directly east of Posey County and is much 

 smaller. Low bottoms several miles wide border the Ohio River, and 

 the country rises gently into the hills and higher land in the center 

 and northern part of the county. West of Evansville these hills ap- 

 proach the Ohio River. 



The natural location of this section of the state seemed to have 

 made it attractive to the earliest known inhabitants, the Mound Builders, 

 later the Indians, and finally the white man. The New Harmony move- 

 ment had its rise, development and failure in the western part of this 

 territory, at the town of New Harmony. Even Audubon and Say found 

 this an interesting and fruitful locality to study birds and insects. 



In Posey County there are four mounds west of Mt. Vernon, not far 

 from the river, but on high ground. In the eastern part of Vander- 

 burgh County there are five mounds of considerable size. The only 

 mound away from the river is found about twelve miles north of the 

 Ohio. It has been largely explored and most of it has disappeared. 

 These mounds have been more or less completely explored and the 

 specimens distributed to many parts of the United States, the Smith- 

 sonian Institution having secured many of them. In the Museum at 

 New Harmony large numbers of these relics have been placed and are 

 now exhibited to the public. Last year a Museum Society was organized 

 and incorporated in Evansville to receive a large collection from Sebas- 

 tian Henrich. This collection, which is entirely local and made by Mr. 

 Henrich, has been arranged and placed on exhibition in rooms in the 

 Willard Library in Evansville. It consists of about 2,000 arrow points 

 of great variety, and many of them the finest I have seen, a large 

 number of drills, besides some good pieces of pottery, many splendid 

 pipes, hundreds of celts, axes and copper specimens. 



Another similar collection was made by C. F. Artes of Evansville. 

 After his death it was sold for $7,500 and removed from the city. A 

 third collection, now consisting of about 5,000 specimens, half of which 

 are arrow points, is owned by Mr. Otto Laval, who lives five miles east 

 of the city of Evansville. His collection of drills is the best that has 

 been made in this section. The mortars or grinding stones are of rare 

 patterns, one being eighteen inches in diameter. One has an oval con- 

 cavity and a pestle ground to fit it. His copper specimens, one of which 



"Pi-oc. 38th Meetins-, 1922 (1923)." 



