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Thumbnail History of Immigration in Indiana
Original Peoples and Early Settlers Native American nations have lived in this region for at least eight thousand years. Originally, these first inhabitants made their homes along the northern borders of what we now call Indiana, and in the south along the Ohio River. Between 1000 BC and 1500 AD, Woodland Native peoples farmed the rich bottom land along the Ohio river, growing corn, beans and squash.
Around 1100 AD, a large community of Mississippian people settled along the northern bank of the Ohio. One thriving settlement (near Evansville, Indiana), known by historians and archaeologists as Angel Mounds, became a major religious, political and economic center; at least 3,000 people lived there by 1300 AD. In fact, this was the largest city in Indiana until the mid-nineteenth century! It included substantial houses, stockades, a plaza and "suburbs" ( or satellite villages). Mississippian people built very large earthen mounds probably as homes for community leaders and as sites for worship and burial. One flat-topped mound in this ancient city is about 44 feet high and at least 650 feet wide. Mounds from other pre-contact cities are found in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin (especially along the Mississippi River.) Archaeological evidence suggests that residents began leaving Angel Mounds around 1400 A.D.; the settlement seems to have been completely abandoned within 50 years, long before the arrival of European explorers. Today, we don't really know why Mississippians left this city. Perhaps there was a natural disaster or successive crop failures. Perhaps they joined with other Native nations. However, Angel Mounds continues to be an important spiritual site for many Native Americans in Indiana.
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