Visit Urban Archeology: Where to See City Digs and Collections

Cities are known for their bustle, their diversity and above all how fast they change, and change often pushes the stories of residents and neighbourhoods out of sight. Yet it can also seal the past underground, preserving surprisingly intact evidence of cultures, communities and everyday life. Urban archeology usually happens ahead of construction: archeologists use city maps and historical documents to predict what they will find, then bring in backhoes and cranes to strip away fill and rubble. Here are places across the country to see it.

Alexandria, Virginia

The Alexandria Archaeology Museum, on the third floor of the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Old Town, has a public laboratory where volunteers may be washing, marking and cataloguing finds from the latest dig.

Boston and Lowell, Massachusetts

• Boston City Archaeology: archeologists have found crypts, sunken ships and 17th-century schools across the city; its lab offers tours and volunteer programmes.
• Lowell National Historical Park: Massachusetts's third incorporated city and one of the country's first planned cities, whose mills made it a manufacturing centre; archeology traces its part in the industrial revolution, and the boarding houses and streets that served it.

New York City

Archeology at the African Burial Ground. NPS.

• African Burial Ground National Monument: digging on the 290 Broadway block, archeologists found a colonial-era African burial ground. The excavation opened conversations with descendant communities about slavery in New York and revealed how enslaved Africans buried their dead.
• NYC Archaeological Repository: collections from excavations in every borough, with an online map and exhibits; visits by appointment.

Philadelphia

• Bartram's Garden, one of the few known prehistoric sites in the city, used seasonally by Native Americans as early as 3,000 BCE; finds can be seen by appointment in its library.
• Digging I-95: follow online the archeology done ahead of highway work.
• Independence National Historical Park: sites including Benjamin Franklin's, James Dexter's and George Washington's houses, showing the challenges of digging in a city centre.

San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. NPS.

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park includes four of the city's 18th-century Spanish missions; a fifth, San Antonio de Valero, is the Alamo. Archeology at the missions and their acequias, gristmills and dams shows how life in them worked.

San Diego, California

The San Diego Archaeological Center shows how people have lived in the area over the past 10,000 years, with exhibits and education programmes.

San Francisco, California

Archeologists at Golden Gate National Recreation Area. NPS.

• Golden Gate National Recreation Area: more than 370 archeological sites, from colonial forts and shipwrecks to bathhouses and amusement parks.
• The Presidio: the Presidio Trust manages more than 30 archeological areas in the Presidio National Historic Landmark District, spanning Ohlone settlement hundreds of years ago to the U.S. Army; visitors can see the lab and volunteer.

St. Augustine, Florida

Castillo de San Marcos. NPS.

• Castillo de San Marcos National Monument: archeology has revealed how the fort developed and how its garrison lived.
• Florida Museum of Natural History: exhibits and finds from across St. Augustine, tracing the city's growth over centuries.
• Fort Matanzas National Monument, nearby: archeologists have traced the history of this small fort above the river, including the British period and a nearby wreck.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Visit Urban Archeology." https://www.nps.gov/articles/visit-urban-archeology.htm
• Two photographs from Alexandria and Philadelphia, not credited to the Park Service, are not reproduced here.