From Historic Houston Cemetery to a 17th Century English Colony?

Summary

In 1986 the Fire Department of the City of Houston was altering several buildings in their Logistics Center. During this reconstruction it was determined that the renovations were impacting an historic cemetery. We obtained an emergency contract to evaluate this impact in order to aid in avoiding further impact to the human remains. During this evaluation we discovered that two types of graves were present in a small portion of the cemetery that contained European/Christian attributes, but were clearly temporally discrete and had radically different types of fill. In 1989 a second small project was undertaken in an area thought to have been immediately south of the cemetery. During the course of these two investigations, several features including approximately twenty burials, two ceramic sherds, a moat/defense wall feature, and historical research has suggested that this part of Houston was the site of an English colonial settlement between the1630-50s.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Good Questions Met by Archaeological Revelations   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-35,03