Revisiting a Demolished Community: Correlating Archaeological Foundations to Archival Images

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology/Architecture", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

New York City demolished thousands of rural buildings to create their Catskill, Croton, and Delaware watersheds. Archaeological survey around reservoirs has been able to document the ruins that remain. But correlating foundations to specific buildings and landowners has been difficult, due to the scale of landscape transformation. Current waterways, roadways, and railroads combine fragments of old and new, complicating the georeferencing of archival maps and images. Collaborations with the descendant community have provided crucial links between what is and what was. It is now possible to link some archival photographs to foundation remnants, allowing for the creation of a foundation typology. The photos also depict such a variety of architectural forms that the limitations of archaeological assessment through surface survey are made clear.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• Archaeology/Architecture

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow