City, contractors give detailed update on excavations for Henry Street Bridge and White River Innovation District

At a public meeting at the Edison School of Arts in Indianapolis, city staff, contract archaeologists and university bioarchaeologists gave a progress update on archaeological excavation connected to the Henry Street Bridge and White River Innovation District project and described what will happen to human remains and material culture recovered from former burial grounds.

The update matters because the project footprint crosses parts of historic cemetery ground historically associated with Greenlawn and Union Cemetery; speakers emphasized that excavation, documentation and respectful reburial are central to how the city is proceeding.

City of Indianapolis Director of Public Works Todd Wilson opened the meeting by framing the project as “about more than a bridge,” and said the work is meant to “reckon with some difficult truths about our city's past.” Wilson and other presenters described a phased construction program for the White River Innovation District and tied the timing of certain work — notably the eastern Henry Street build — to the pace of archaeological excavation.

Ryan Peterson, the project’s lead archaeologist, described the field methods Stantec is using: mechanical removal of overburden under archaeologist supervision, identification of grave shafts by soil staining, sub-centimeter GPS mapping, drone flights and hand excavation with screening of soil through quarter-inch mesh. “The goal is to remove as much overburden as possible without impacting or disturbing the burial,” Peterson said. He added that structure-from-motion photogrammetry and other digital recording techniques are being used to create precise 3-D documentation of burials and site features.

Presenters summarized preliminary counts and conditions reported from the field. According to the team, of the grave shafts investigated so far 511 were complete intact burials, 296 appear to have been previously relocated but still contained some human remains, 17 were recorded as completely empty, and 36 were indeterminate because they could not be safely accessed. Stantec and the university lab team said more remains continue to be encountered as excavation moves eastward.

Dr. Britt Drew, historical archaeologist with Stantec, and colleague Jeremy Wilson of Indiana University–Indianapolis described the types of artifacts being documented and how material culture helps date burials. Drew displayed examples of coffin hardware, infant viewing windows, clothing fasteners, jewelry and religious objects and explained how those items, together with archival records, guide tentative dating and identification efforts. She warned the audience in advance that stylized, texture-removed 3-D models of human remains would be used during the presentation.

Jeremy Wilson, a bioarchaeologist at IU Indianapolis, described laboratory procedures and analysis. He said the project has “in excess of 800 burials in our lab” and that the lab has completed analysis on just over 250 of those to date. Wilson described the four-step lab workflow (processing, inventory, formal analysis and final documentation) and the types of data the team records, including age-at-death, biological ancestry indicators, stature estimates and skeletal pathology; he said roughly 40 percent of analyzed individuals so far are juveniles (≤18) and about 60 percent are adults, and that preliminary analyses show representation of both people of West African and Western European ancestry across the original burial ground.

Presenters also described community and educational aspects of the project. The city runs an internship program called “Indiology” tied to the excavation; the team said eight interns were recruited and three interns attended the meeting. City archivist Jordan Ryan, project manager Shannon Killian and a community advisory group (CAG) were repeatedly credited for their roles in outreach and oversight. Presenters said records relating to an earlier 1924 excavation (when remains were moved to Floral Park) are digitized at the Indiana State Library and are being used to cross-check field findings.

On disposition, Stantec and the university team said human remains and associated artifacts will be analyzed in the lab and then reinterred; Dr. Drew said “nothing will be kept for teaching collections or museum exhibits.” The team said the Association of material culture with human remains will be an important step in a reburial plan that will be finalized once the field count is complete. The city reiterated that its excavation authority covers the public right of way and that decisions about any structures outside the right of way would involve the State Historic Preservation Office.

No formal votes or policy decisions were taken at the meeting; presenters provided updates, answered written audience questions and sought community input. Construction timeline details given by the city staff included a Phase 1 (west side of the river and roadway work) the team expects to complete in 2025, Phase 2 (the Henry Street bridge) where two beams had been set by the date of the meeting, and Phase 3 (east-side Henry Street) which the city said remains under design and is dependent on the cemetery excavation schedule and findings.

The meeting concluded with organizers encouraging the public to consult the White River Innovation District project website for ongoing updates and to submit questions via comment cards or the project email. Presenters asked for patience, noting the excavation and downstream analyses are time-consuming and will continue across the summer and subsequent academic years.