their descendants. Site acquisition In May 1931, Warren K. Moorehead, a nationally known archaeologist from Ohio State University and the Peabody Foundation; Eli Lilly, who became president of Eli Lilly and Company in 1932 and served as the president of the Indiana Historical Society from 1932 to 1947; and Glenn A. Black and E. Y. Guernsey, Society employees and archaeologists, visited the Angel site as part of a tour to assess Indiana's archaeological sites. Black, who served as the Society's director of archaeology and from 1939 to 1964 supervised excavation and field schools at the Angel site, thought that the mounds would provide an opportunity to conduct a long-term study of a single archaeological site. Although individuals had been surveying the area and digging at the Angel site prior to the beginning of its official excavation in 1939, the archaeological findings were not properly documented. Some individuals also came to the site simply to collect relics. In 1938, the Indiana Historical Society purchased of property from the Angel family descendants and others to protect the archaeological site from destruction. The mounds were in danger of being destroyed due to construction of a planned levee and real estate development. Eli Lilly in his role as a philanthropist interested in Indiana's prehistory, provided the funds for the purchase. Early excavation Initial efforts in 1938–39 focused on surveying and clearing the main archaeological site and an outlying camp. From 1939 to 1942, as a project financed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, the Works Projects Administration employed more than 250 workers under the direction of Indiana archeologist Glenn A. Black to excavate of the site. These efforts resulted in the recording and processing of 2.3 million archaeological items. Excavation was temporarily halted during World War II, but resumed in 1945 as part of the Indiana University Archaeology Field School during the summer months. In 1946, the Indiana Historical Society transferred ownership of the property to the State of Indiana, but retained the rights to excavate the site. Black remained on the property as its caretaker. Between 1958 and 1962, two National Science Foundation grants provided financial support to assess geophysical applications at the site, including use of a proton magnetometer to trace segments of the site's palisade (stockade) walls that were not visible from the surface. This project, which extended the work begun by the University of Oxford's Research Laboratory for Archaeology