Urban Archaeology at the Harrison Avenue Residences: A “Glimpse” into Immigrant Communities in Nineteenth-Century Boston, Massachusetts

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Intact cultural deposits providing a “glimpse” into domestic life in rapidly transitioning urban communities, such as Boston, are rare archaeologically. The constant, natural movement of people in city landscapes complicates results of excavations at these urban archaeological sites. Investigations in 2020 and 2021 by SWCA Environmental Consultants at the proposed Harrison Avenue Residences, in downtown Boston, identified a sheet midden (Feature 1), associated with the nineteenth-century immigrant communities residing in a series of former row houses. Documentary research, in conjunction with artifacts recovered from the midden, was interpreted, contextualizing the excavated material. With the lack of a formal data recovery for the site, archaeologists are left to question what characteristics define the significance of urban archaeological sites? How can complex, stratified urban sites, such as this one, help us to reexamine and challenge the way we interpret these historically quickly transitioning urban populations?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36242.0