End of Season Unit Updates
Our Fall 2023 excavation season ended on November 17th. Over the course of ten weeks, 12 Penn undergraduates, 4 Penn graduate students, and 22 community volunteers worked together to excavate four units. In this post we summarize what we have learned so far… but 80% of archaeology happens AFTER the excavation, so there is still lots more to learn… lab work will begin in January (with dates and times TBA very soon)!
Test Units 1, 4, and 5: 32 N. 35th Street (Structure)
This unit, located on the former site of a wooden twin home built in the early 1850s, consisted of three adjacent 1 meter x 1 meter (about 3 foot square) units. We uncovered a corner of the stone house foundation and excavated part of the basement, which had been filled in with trash and rubble when the house was torn down in the 1930s. A 1909 Indian Head penny, a diaper pin, and many fragments of plates and bottles were uncovered in the basement. These artifacts start to paint a picture of what life may have been like for the people who lived at 32 N. 35th Street from the 1850s to the 1930s. Abundant iron fragments near the floor, including the pipe pictured below, hint that household industry may have taken place in this basement.
Test Unit 3: 32 N. 35th Street (Privy)
The circular outline of this brick-lined privy (or outhouse) was visible on the surface of the CEC parking lot. Over the course of our excavation, we dug over 5 feet into this time capsule of life in the Black Bottom. The cross-section of the privy shown below is a view through close to 100 years of history relating to the people who lived at 32 N. 35th Street, their surrounding community, and the nearby Quaker school. Artifacts like slate pencils and a lice comb tell us about life in the school, while buttons, fragments of decorated pottery, and food remains hint at what everyday life was like for the people living in the neighborhood. A complete bottle tells us that sometime in the 1860s or 1870s, somebody drank a Weiss beer made by Johnston & Co. This beer was bottled here in Philly and was light, effervescent, and sour, sometimes served with raspberry syrup.
Test Unit 2: Warren St. Rowhomes
This unit was placed in an area where our geophysical survey had suggested a large area of rubble where three brick rowhomes once stood along Warren St. These houses, and those around them, were torn down during the large-scale 1960s destruction of the Black Bottom neighborhood. Our excavations confirmed this interpretation of the geophysical data, as we dug through a portion of this brick rubble. In addition to small objects that had been abandoned when the houses were destroyed, we also found many fragments of plaster that tell us what colors people chose to paint their walls and curb stones that would have once lined streets throughout the neighborhood.
Test Unit 6: Front of the CEC Building
This unit was placed in the front yard of the CEC to draw in people walking along Lancaster Avenue. While we did not know if we would find very much here, it turned into one of our most exciting excavations. The top layers contained lots of coal and broken pottery related to activities happening in and around the CEC building over its long history. After we dug about 1 foot down, we began to uncover a lot of red fill made of ground-up bricks. The history and purpose of this fill is still a mystery, but we are hoping to learn more about when it was placed there by studying the artifacts from within it in the lab.
