Duvall Studios

10/14/2026

Mighty close to home, east of Noblesville.

📌 Strawtown Enclosure — Hamilton County, Indiana
📍 40°7'35.47"N 85°57'7.73"W

Hidden within Strawtown Koteewi Park in central Indiana are the surviving remains of a prehistoric Native American village surrounded by a circular earthen enclosure.

Known as the Strawtown Enclosure, this archaeological site is associated with the Oliver Phase, a Late Woodland to Late Prehistoric cultural tradition that flourished in central Indiana around AD 1250 to 1400. The settlement was surrounded by a circular earthen embankment and ditch, features that remain visible today despite centuries of erosion and changes to the surrounding landscape. Archaeologists estimate the village may have supported roughly 100 to 200 people, though occupation may have been seasonal rather than continuous.

The LiDAR imagery reveals the remarkable circular outline of the ancient enclosure. Near the center of the image, a broad circular earthwork emerges from the surrounding terrain, with portions of its embankment and ditch still distinguishable, even though the features are relatively low and difficult to appreciate from ground level. The accompanying aerial photograph illustrates just how subtle the enclosure has become, much of the former village is now covered by grass and scattered trees, making its original layout nearly impossible to recognize without elevation data.

Archaeological investigations have revealed evidence of a community supported by agriculture, hunting, and the collection of wild plants. Corn appears to have been an important dietary staple, supplemented by crops and gathered foods including sunflower, goosefoot, maygrass, little barley, hickory nuts, walnuts, and purslane. Animal remains recovered from the area include white-tailed deer, turkey, turtles, squirrels, and other wildlife, offering a glimpse into the resources the village’s inhabitants relied on. A nearby cemetery has also been associated with the settlement, indicating the landscape served both residential and mortuary purposes.

The enclosure represents only a small part of a much larger archaeological landscape. Approximately 140 additional archaeological sites have been identified within Strawtown Koteewi Park’s roughly 750 acres, with evidence of human activity extending from the Late Paleoindian period into historic times, and the greatest concentration of occupation appears to correspond with the period of the enclosed village.

Today, the park preserves this important Indigenous landscape, while the Taylor Center of Natural History provides educational exhibits and information about the area’s archaeological heritage.

What appears from the air to be an ordinary grassy clearing becomes the unmistakable outline of an ancient village through LiDAR. More than 600 years after its occupation, the Strawtown Enclosure remains a remarkable example of Indiana’s prehistoric settlement history and the ability of modern elevation mapping to reveal features nearly lost to time.

10/07/2026

At the Preserving Historic Places conference last week, I sat wth a woman from Washington. The only thing I could recall off-hand about her community was their “sanitary diner”, the White Steamer.

Today we’re putting the spotlight on The New White Steamer Hamburgers in Washington!

Sometimes, you just need a good old-fashioned burger and this Washington favorite is serving up a taste of Indiana’s classic roadside food culture.

Whether you’re a longtime fan or haven’t stopped in yet, The New White Steamer Hamburgers is worth adding to your Indiana food adventure.

Have you tried them? What’s your go-to order?

10/05/2026

Its been a long slog for the Crump. Get it over the hump.

This is an important moment for The Crump and community support is needed tomorrow night.

On October 6 at 6:00 PM, City Council will meet in the Council Chambers at City Hall to vote on the resolution approved by the Redevelopment Commission, which would provide 15% of the total capital campaign funding for The Crump’s revitalization. This is an important step for Project Encore, and having community members in the room can demonstrate the level of interest and support behind this project.

Join us to hear the discussion, learn more about what’s ahead for The Crump, and make your voice heard. We hope to see you there!

09/29/2026

📌 Man Mound — Sauk County, Wisconsin
📍 43°29'18.94"N, 89°40'18.57"W

The figure stops abruptly at a modern road, its legs simply gone, one of the clearest examples anywhere of how close these ancient earthworks came to vanishing entirely.

We're revisiting one of our favorite Wisconsin earthworks with a newly processed, higher-resolution LiDAR image. We're also using satellite imagery from 2017 for this one, since it offers one of the clearest views of the site, even though some of the trees over the mound have thankfully since been removed. There's another change here too, the imagery is oriented south instead of our usual north-up presentation. For anyone who's seen Man Mound before, flipping the perspective gives a completely different appreciation of the figure, the head and distinctive horn-like projections, outstretched arms, torso, and surviving portions of the legs all stand out remarkably well in this LiDAR.

Located northeast of Baraboo in Sauk County, Man Mound is one of the rarest surviving prehistoric earthworks in North America. Originally measuring approximately 214 feet long and 48 feet wide, it was built as a large human-shaped earthen figure. The Wisconsin Historical Society dates the site to roughly AD 750 to 1200, within Wisconsin's Late Woodland effigy-mound tradition.

What makes Man Mound extraordinary is simply its rarity. At least five definite anthropomorphic effigy mounds, and another probable example, were historically documented in Wisconsin, but the others have all been destroyed or severely altered. The Wisconsin Historical Society identifies Man Mound as the only surviving earthen anthropomorphic effigy in the entire Upper Midwest.

Its unusual head is particularly interesting. Historical documentation describes several of Wisconsin's known human effigies as having horns or horned headdresses, including this one. Exactly what the figure represented to its builders is unknown, but the site is recognized as part of a Native mortuary and ceremonial landscape and remains a culturally significant sacred place.

The mound came remarkably close to disappearing entirely. Surveyor William H. Canfield mapped it in 1859, and by the early 1900s, the lower legs had already been damaged when Man Mound Road was built directly across the figure, with the landowner preparing to plow under what remained. Preservationists raised the money to purchase the surviving portion, and the park was formally dedicated in 1908.

One correction to something said in earlier posts is worth making here: the missing lower legs weren't actually reconstructed as earthworks. Man Mound Road still crosses their original location, and the feet, which extended onto the property on the opposite side of the road, were heavily worn down by later agricultural use. In 2008, the original outlines of the missing legs and feet were marked on the road and adjoining ground using Canfield's historic survey measurements.

That history is especially easy to understand in this LiDAR. The surviving human figure stops abruptly right at the modern road, an almost perfect visual demonstration of how easily these ancient earthworks could disappear as Wisconsin's landscape was converted to farms and roads.

Man Mound was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and later designated a National Historic Landmark, reflecting both its archaeological significance and the extraordinary rarity of a surviving human-shaped effigy. Today the property is preserved through the Sauk County Historical Society and Sauk County, with consultation and collaboration involving the Ho-Chunk Nation.

More than a thousand years after this enormous human figure was raised from the Wisconsin landscape, LiDAR lets us see its surviving form in a way that's almost impossible from ground level, the head, horns, arms, and body still emerging clearly from the earth, while a modern road cuts directly across where the figure's legs once continued.

09/17/2026

This is what institutional capture looks like.

Eunice Trotter, a leading figure in the movement to preserve Black history across Indiana, is leaving her role at Indiana Landmarks.

Trotter is stepping down from her position as director of the nonprofit’s Black Heritage Preservationist Program at a time when diversity initiatives face heightened scrutiny. She said she plans to focus on other projects but that her decision came in part out of concerns the program would lose the financial support needed to ensure its success.

The program launched in 2022 with a $5 million grant from the Lilly Endowment. That grant funding is set to expire in 2027.

The program identifies sites to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It also offers scholarships and internships to aspiring historians, as well as grants for restoration and preservation of sites important to Black heritage in Indiana.

Leon Bates, a local historian who Trotter recruited to assist with her efforts to preserve Greenlawn Cemetery, said Trotter’s departure comes at a concerning time for Black people in the United States.

He pointed to the resignation of Lonnie Bunch, who recently retired as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. The Trump administration has accused the museum of “extreme political activism” and pushed for the institution to “celebrate American exceptionalism.”

Trotter, meanwhile, plans to launch an organization that would support artists in Indianapolis who she says have faced challenges finding sites to exhibit their work.

“My hope is that (Indiana) Landmarks, through the Black Heritage program and through the organization itself, will continue to advocate for the preservation of the rich and deep Black heritage that exists in this state but is little known to the public,” Trotter said.

09/16/2026

Jails can be hard to adapt, but they sure are solid.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HoN8C8teZ/

09/11/2026

Indiana clearly hasn’t learned about wetland loss and flooding yet.

Developers of Google's Fort Wayne data center have been given the green light to fill more local wetlands as part of its multi-phase expansion despite public pushback.

REPORT: https://www.21alivenews.com/2026/09/11/idem-approves-googles-latest-request-fill-wetlands-fort-wayne-data-center-expansion/