Join us for an all-day brick analysis workshop! We recovered many bricks from the Community Education Center excavation. At this workshop, you’ll learn how archaeologists take these seemingly mundane artifacts and make them tell us important information about the past. This workshop will run from 10am-4pm (lunch provided). First, you’ll hear from our own brick expert about the results of her brick analysis so far and then get to spend most of the day collecting data in the lab. No prior experience necessary, but please RSVP so we know how many people to plan for!

Join us for an all-day workshop featuring the process of flotation! Flotation is a method archaeologists use for recovering the fragile remains of plants. It is a key part of reconstructing what people ate in the past. This workshop will run from 10am-4pm (lunch provided) and involve you in every step of processing the flotation samples we collected from the Community Education Center excavations. We will spend much of the day outside and it’s very likely you’ll get kind of muddy, so come dressed appropriately. No prior experience necessary, but please RSVP so we know how many people to plan for!

Come learn more about Heritage West and engage with our interactive timeline at the Penn Museum Juneteenth Celebration. Bring the whole family for a festival filled with joyful performance, live DJ sets, captivating storytelling, and hands-on activities for all ages. Support Black-owned businesses at a community marketplace or grab a bite from locally owned food trucks. This is free and open to the public so please just stop by!

Heritage West is a community archaeology project created with the goal of using archaeology to uncover stories of individuals who lived in the Black Bottom neighborhood of West Philadelphia from the 19th century to the present. For four months in 2023, community members and students worked alongside professional archaeologists to excavate artifacts and features that highlight the love, community, and humanity of the Black Bottom neighborhood and recognize the violence of its destruction under the guise of urban renewal.

Co-project director’s Dr. Sarah Linn and Dr. Megan Kassabaum will discuss the early stages of project planning, the 2023 excavation season, collaborative lab work undertaken in 2024, and current efforts to share the recovered stories widely.

This lecture will be held at National Mechanics, 22 S. 3rd St., Philadelphia, PA. Tickets are not required for this event, and seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

About the Speaker(s):
Sarah Linn, Ph.D., is the Assistant Director of the Academic Engagement Department. Her work centers on supporting student research in the Museum and making archaeological and anthropological research accessible to the public. Dr. Linn has co-curated two exhibitions at the Penn Museum, Invisible Beauty: The Art of Archaeological Science and The Stories We Wear.

Megan C. Kassabaum, Ph.D., is Weingarten Assistant Curator of the American Section and Assistant Professor of Anthropology. She is an anthropological archaeologist with research interests in public and museum archaeology, archaeology of Philadelphia, pre-contact Native American archaeology of the Eastern United States, monument construction and communal ritual, foodways, and ceramic technology. She is committed to making the archaeology of these topics more accessible to the public.

Students will present their final papers on community archaeology in West Philadelphia. All are welcome! Sign-up process TBA.

Details TBA