Post by UKarchaeology on Nov 24, 2015 1:38:04 GMT
This handpainted porcelain doll is among the artifacts on display at the Fairmont Pittsburgh hotel after a downtown dig. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photo)
PITTSBURGH -- Prehistoric traders of the Delaware tribes bivouacked on the bank of what would someday be called the Allegheny River. European settlers cut forests and built overlapping settlements near the three rivers’ confluence. A century later, more immigrants arrived, invented a middle class and rose to power in the city of Pittsburgh.
Archaeological evidence of each group is still there, buried under centuries of urban development.
“With modern multidisciplinary research, we can take it even further than that,” said archaeologist Casey Campetti. “Sometimes, we can link specific relics we’ve found in Pittsburgh with the actual individual people who once owned them.”
On a recent Sunday, Campetti led Venture Outdoors’ archaeological walking tour of parts of the city, pointing out recently discovered remnants of the city that once was.
Campetti works with AECOM, an architectural research group. Excavation, research and publication of the tour sites was conducted by Pittsburgh-based Christine Davis Consultants.
“Each time the city is reinvented, they leave a staggering number of things there,” said Campetti. “During the North Shore Connector excavation, [there were] something to the tune of 18,000 artifacts found just within the footprint of the construction project. [They] found row houses and privies and evidence of Native American sites.”
Before municipal trash collection, things that weren’t wanted were chucked into the privy, or outhouse. Today, the discovery of those spots can reveal generations of cultural change.
Urban archaeology is a relatively new discipline, the result of laws and regulations establishing new cultural resources management responsibilities for federal agencies during construction that uses federal funding.
“It’s usually not holding up big projects. Construction managers are usually pretty savvy to what’s going on,” said Campetti. “We have three phases of work: ID, is there anything there? Importance, are the artifacts related to an important person or some important new discovery? And treatment, if there’s something important there, what should we do about it?
In urban settings, broad archaeological research zones are usually impractical.
“Urban construction used to be just knocking down what’s there and building something over it,” said Campetti. “Nowadays, with these big skyscrapers, they often have to dig down so deep to scoop out the foundation. We’re finding layers of historical relics from very different times.”
Full story: www.dailygazette.com/news/2015/nov/23/urban-archaeologists-find-hints-about-those-who-ca/