YORKTOWN, Ind. (AP) _ A national nonprofit has acquired a 2,000-year-old Native American earthwork in east-central Indiana from a real estate developer.
The Star Press reports Larry New agreed to sell the property encompassing the Yorktown Enclosure earthwork to the Archaeological Conservancy, which is based in New Mexico. The nonprofit paid $20,000 for land appraised at more than $200,000.
Paul Gardner, Midwest director of the conservancy, calls the site “rare and significant.'' The conservancy says earthwork enclosures resemble defensive structures, with a circular ditch and soil built up around them.
In the time the Yorktown Enclosure was made, American Indians in the area formed small circular earthworks and sizable burial mounds.
The site sits between Muncie and Yorktown on land zoned as agricultural, rural residential and commercial.
