The proposed thesis titled “Core and Periphery in the Middle Woodland Midwest: An Analysis of the Earthworks of East Central Indiana and South-Central Ohio” will examine Middle Woodland earthwork sites in South Central Ohio and East Central Indiana. Expanding upon current ideas about core and periphery currently used by many prehistoric archaeologists this thesis hopes to change the way archaeologists define core and periphery by putting core and periphery into the proper context of a mini-system. Using the original works of Wallerstein and his vaguely defined concept of a mini-system and further defining this concept through examination of the notion of a gift based economy this thesis hopes to discern not only core and periphery areas in the Middle Woodland Midwest, but also to discern if one mini-system or multiple mini-systems existed in the Middle Woodland Midwest. Through analysis of quantitative data gathered from the Scioto, Licking, Upper White, and Big Blue River valleys the thesis will demonstrate new methodologies for establishing the extant of mini-systems. Statistical analysis to be used includes linear regression testing and the analysis of power law distributions. These tests, coupled with analysis of the data sets, using a comparative framework, are hoped to provide deeper analysis of core and periphery relationships