Excavating St. Louis: French Colonial and Urban Archaeology

Summary

The history of the city of St Louis, Missouri begins with the arrival of the French and spans over 250 years of development into the large urban center of today. The original settlement was thought to have been destroyed by the expansion of the city; however, recent excavations by the Missouri Department of Transportation at the Madame Haycraft Site (23SL2334) have discovered intact French colonial occupations in the heart of downtown. Work here has uncovered a large poteaux-en-terre French style structure built by Louis Dumot in 1795. Found within this structure was a relatively dense scatter of colonial-period French and English ceramics and an associated cellar feature containing significant quantity of food bone, a fragmented wine bottle, musket balls, and faience sherds. Continuing research plans to uncover more information about early settlement in St Louis as well as change the outlook of historic archaeology in large urban centers.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage