Rockhouse Cliffs Rock Shelters
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Rockhouse Cliffs Rock Shelters (12PE98; 12PE100)
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Comprehensive view of the shelters; 12PE100 to the left and 12PE98 to the right
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| Location | By the spring in Rockhouse Hollow, northwest of Derby, Indiana |
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| Coordinates | 38°3′35″N 86°34′40″W / 38.05972°N 86.57778°WCoordinates: 38°3′35″N 86°34′40″W / 38.05972°N 86.57778°W |
| Area | 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
| NRHP reference # | 86000918 |
| Added to NRHP | April 25, 1986 |
The Rockhouse Cliffs Rockshelters (12PE98 and 12PE100) are a pair of rockshelters in the far southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. Located amid broken terrain in the Hoosier National Forest, the shelters may have been inhabited for more than ten thousand years by peoples ranging from the Early Archaic period until the twentieth century. As a result of their extensive occupation and their remote location, they are important and well-preserved archaeological sites and have been named a historic site.
The shelters are located in western Union Township just south of the Leopold Township line in central Perry County; their PLSS location is Section 24, Township 5 South, Range 2 West. This portion of the county is extremely difficult of access: Perry County is the hilliest part of Indiana, and the land surrounding the shelters is isolated even by Perry County standards. The area was once heavily cultivated, but during the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps engaged in a reforestation program on the former farmsteads. Rockshelters are common in the region; a cursory field survey found 70 shelters countywide in 1953.
Between the two shelters, 50 feet (15 m) away from the southern shelter, lies a small spring. A road formerly ran atop the cliff edge, but when the area became a forest preserve, the road was abandoned, and it was inaccessible to all wheeled vehicles by the 1950s.
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