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Porter, Indiana
Fate of landfill project could hinge on burial mounds
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/home/article/0,1299,DRMN_1_1062091,00.html
April 1, 2002
Questions about whether a group of earthen mounds are Indian burial sites or "naturally occurring knolls" may determine the future of a proposed northern Indiana landfill.
Porter County officials will meet Tuesday to decide if the landfill meets zoning standards. They plan to weigh the mound issues, among other factors, before issuing a ruling.
Porter Development LLC, the landfill developer, says it will not destroy ancient sites on the land if an archaeologist proves Indians are buried there.
"If these are burial sites, and they're determined to be significant, our most likely course of action will be to set them aside," Richard Counts, Porter Development's chief executive officer, told the Post-Tribune for a story published Sunday.
But, he added, what appear to be mounds could be "naturally occurring knolls."
Opponents of the landfill project, including American Indian groups, say they have proof from previous studies at the site that they are burial mounds.
"There's been enough excavation in the 1920s and 1930s to show those are burial mounds," said Kevin Daugherty, resource developer for the Pokagon band of Potawatomi Indians.
The site, called the Wark Mound after a previous owner of the land, is "absolutely the best-preserved" Indian mound in northwest Indiana, said Mark Shurr, a University of Notre Dame anthropology professor and archaeologist.
"I think it's pretty likely there are human remains (inside it)," Shurr said.
Counts contends that the most significant mounds, the ones shown to contain remains, are on neighboring property. The most in-depth study of those mounds, in 1932, detailed findings from three neighboring mounds but not the Wark Mound, he said.
If the landfill plan receives zoning permission, Porter Development will hire an archaeologist of its own to study the entire site before the company applies for a state landfill permit, Counts said.
"Our archaeologist will be able to go around and determine within hours that they are mounds," he said.
Ruling out the existence of skeletal remains would likely be a bigger undertaking.
Larry Stillwell, an archaeologist from Muncie, told Counts in a letter last month that an excavation would be required to show that the mounds are burial sites.
Counts said that even if mound sites were set aside, there would be room to develop the landfill on the site. Opponents insist that preserving the area for a park, or continuing to farm there, would be a better use.
"I can respect the farming," Daugherty said. "It's something of the earth that's growing out of the earth. Personally, I feel the people that are buried there would respect that."
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