Macrobotanicals from the Attic: Legacy Data at Bartram’s Garden (Philadelphia, PA)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 1977, historic preservation specialists working at Bartram’s Garden (Philadelphia, PA)

uncovered a surprising find under the floorboards of the attic of the family home. Over five

kilograms of material had been cached by rodents over the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Established in 1728 by botanist John Bartram, the garden is the oldest surviving botanic garden

in North America. Many botanical taxa, botanically curious people, and other creatures in a

Middle Atlantic homestead and garden passed through this tract of land on the Schuylkill River.

Traces of their comings and goings were inadvertently preserved by these rodents.

Beginning in 2018, the macrobotanicals present in this material have been extensively analyzed,

providing information about the family’s diet, business, and scientific endeavors. This paper

takes a step back from the results of this project to ask an additional, and adjacent set of

questions. In what ways is rodent collected archaeobotanical data, like legacy data, an alternative

archive? Does this kind of research reproduce the affordances and harms of other legacy

research? Finally, how should we be asking other historic sites to save these types of data when

they uncover them, and who should be analyzing these finds?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52127