With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Treasure trove of history found at SugarHouse site (PA)

Under a tent on the grounds of the future SugarHouse Casino, archaeologists sift through buckets of debris, picking out and bagging the choicest broken bits.

Half a teacup. The neck of a blue bottle. A shard of thick brown pottery.

The artifacts come mostly from 18th-century brick privies, the colonial equivalent of Dumpsters.

But the items are practically newfangled compared with what the archaeologists have uncovered in a nearby plot about the size of a tennis court.

In the last month, they have found hundreds of relics left behind by people who lived along the Delaware River not 300 years ago, but 3,500. The cache, found in the southwest corner of the property, constitutes the largest single discovery of Native American artifacts in Philadelphia.
Read entire article at The Philadelphia Inquirer