Panther Pipe on display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, from the Mann Site outside of Mount Vernon in Posey County, Indiana
Posey County was an important place in pre-history.
Note, however, that this page is for informational purposes only. Although anyone is welcome to drive by, none of these sites is open to the public and trespassing on them could result in fines or incarceration.
The Mann site was at the center of the Hopewell culture which included most of the peoples in the Mississippi valley from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico from about 200 BCE to 500 CE. The Hopewell were a mound building culture and archeologists estimate that they built over 100 mounds in Posey County alone. Three of the five tallest mounds in the Hopewell world, roughly 35 feet tall, are located at the Mann site.
The Mann site was also important because it was a trading hub of the Hopewell culture. Trade items and art and tool creation techniques from all over the Hopewelll area have been found there and pottery from the Mann site artifacts have been found as far away as Georgia.
Very little is known about the Hopewell, and much of what is known was learned through excavations here in Posey County.
The Bone Bank archaeological site, named because bones from Mississippian Indian cemeteries were eroding out from the riverbank, was Indiana’s first archaeological excavation in 1828. Several artifacts from Bone Bank feature prominently in the Smithsonian Indian Museum’s pottery collection, including one shaped like a frog.
