New Orleans Archaeology at the Tricentennial

DOCUMENT Citation Only Helen V. Bouzon. J. Ryan Kennedy.

In this paper we present analysis of faunal remains recovered from a mid-19th century privy at 936 St. Peter Street, an archaeological site in New Orleans’ historic French Quarter. Although the faunal assemblage includes domestic trash related to meals eaten by the site occupants, it is dominated by a tremendous number of caprine cranial elements. These cranial bones show a consistent butchery pattern indicating that site occupants were harvesting caprine brains in large numbers, presumably for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only D. Ryan Gray.

During investigations in advance of the redevelopment of the Lafitte Housing Project in New Orleans, Louisiana, routine excavations by Earth Search, Inc., of a well in the rear of what had been a series of townhouses produced a rich assemblage containing distinctive artifacts.  These were eventually determined to be associated with the household of Julia Metoyer, an African-American midwife.  The story of Metoyer, told through historical documents and the material record, provides insight into...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katie L. Kosack.

As part of the rebuilding process following Hurricane Katrina, twelve city squares in the Lower Mid-City National Register District were investigated archaeologically within the new VA New Orleans Medical Center project area. This study drew on extensive archaeological and archival data to present a holistic story of the working-class residents who helped shape New Orleans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Archaeological data from each of the house lots revealed everyday practices...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thurston Hahn III.

Archaeologists invariably blame the French for all of the ceramics laying about South Louisiana colonial period sites, even those dating to the Spanish colonial period.  But were the ceramics actually made in France?  Could they have been manufactured locally?  One Spanish period redware kiln has already been examined archaeologically in St. James Parish.  Indeed, not only did potiers, or makers of redware, work in the French colony of La Louisiane, so too did faïenciers.  This paper presents...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher M. Grant.

The Tremé is often referred to as America’s oldest African-American neighborhood and has been the site of significant social, cultural, and political developments in New Orleans for the past two hundred years. From the colonial period onward, the neighborhood fostered the growth of the city’s Creole population and displayed a distinct cultural and demographic makeup unmatched in other parts of the American South. In recent decades, scholars have considered the Tremé as a rich site of cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Grace A Krause.

During the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the sex trade flourished in New Orleans throughout the city, despite legislative efforts at spatial restriction. Guides to the Storyville red-light district (1897-1917) containing advertisements for both places to buy sex and places to eat and drink suggest that food played a significant role in the business of commercial sex. Landscape analysis using data derived from censes, city business directories, newspapers, and other historical sources...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael B. Godzinski.

The corner of Franklin and Customhouse in New Orleans was a lively place in the early decades of the twentieth century, but this was nothing new.  The little commercial district had been bustling at least since after the civil war.  This section of town was home to immigrants for decades prior to the official opening of the "tenderloin". The well known "honkey tonk" that would become the Pig Ankle had been the long-time home to Julia Gigoux, a French immigrant who ran a coffee house there for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth V Williams.

In winter of 2008-09, scheduled demolition of Lafitte Housing Project in New Orleans prompted Section 106 Archaeological Data Recovery, conducted by Earth Search, Inc. During excavations, the presence of of kiln furniture, hand-manipulated clay, and fragments of irregular vessels at City Square 281 (16OR308) suggested that it was a late-nineteenth century kiln site. Research confirms that Lucien Gex, son of a French-born artist, advertised crockery there at 273 Carondelet Walk in 1891; in 1885...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan M Seidemann. Christine L Halling.

Charity Hospital, established in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1736, was one of the longest running public hospitals in the United States, finally closing its doors in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina. During the period from 1847 through 1929, two cemetery sites—one located on Canal Street and one on Canal Boulevard—were used for the interment of many indigents treated at the hospital. Excavations of these sites, most of which occurred after Hurricane Katrina and some directly as a result of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Ryan Kennedy.

This paper presents zooarchaeological fish data from several archaeological sites in historic New Orleans. First, the author discusses these data in terms of reconstructing the historic fisheries supplying New Orleans’ growing urban population, and he highlights the city’s engagement with both local fisheries and international trade networks. The fish data are used as a starting point for exploring how urban growth in New Orleans impacted fish populations in nearby waters and lead to changes in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan deFrance.

Urban farmsteads with livestock were an important component of life in eighteenth and nineteenth century New Orleans.  In this presentation historical research and zooarchaeological analysis of faunal remains from sites in the French Quarter and the Treme are used to examine how meat and meat products were processed and discarded in the urban setting.  The archaeological contexts include the public space of St. Anthony’s Garden located behind the St. Louis Cathedral, the Ursuline Convent, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alahna Moore. Elena Ricci.

With the oncoming threat that climate change poses upon New Orleans, the documentation of historic spaces becomes critically important.  This project aims to promote new methods of cataloging and visualizing the historic character, unique landscapes, and research potential of culturally significant sites so that they may be accessible to future generations, using Holt Cemetery as a case study.  Our process combines GIS, Unmanned Aerial Systems, GPS, and traditional cemetery survey techniques to...