Buried Beneath the City

An Archaeological History of New York

By: Nan A. Rothschild, Amanda Sutphin, H. Arthur Bankoff, Jessica Striebel MacLean

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Paperback | 6 September 2022 | Edition Number 1

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Paperback
312 Pages

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25.4 x 17.8 x 1.5

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Bits and pieces of the lives led long before the age of skyscrapers are scattered throughout New York City, found in backyards, construction sites, street beds, and parks. Pottery shards dating to 600 CE, wine jugs from the Dutch taverns around City Hall, a child's shoe from the Black settlement in Central Park called Seneca Village, raspberry and rhododendron seeds sown in backyard Brooklyn gardens-these everyday objects are windows into the city's forgotten history.

Buried Beneath the City uses urban archaeology to retell the history of New York, working backward chronologically from the topsoil of recent history down to the deeper layers of the past. The book explores the ever-evolving city and the day-to-day world of its residents through artifacts, from the first traces of Indigenous societies more than ten thousand years ago to the detritus of Dutch and English colonization and through to the burgeoning city's transformation into the modern metropolis. It demonstrates how the archaeological record goes beyond written history by preserving mundane things-details of everyday life that are beneath the notice of the documentary record. These artifacts reveal the density, diversity, and creativity of a city perpetually tearing up its foundations to rebuild itself. Lavishly illustrated with images of objects excavated in the city, Buried Beneath the City is at once an archaeological history of New York City and an introduction to urban archaeology.

Industry Reviews

What a fascinating and inspiring book! Exploring thousands of years of New York City's ecological, material, and social history, Buried Beneath the City shows us not only what we can learn from the material leavings of the past but also how archaeologists work to make sense of this evidence. -- Elizabeth Blackmar, coauthor of The Park and the People: A History of Central Park
This beautiful book demonstrates how much is available to recover from beneath our feet in New York City. The authors guide us sure-handedly through the pre-twentieth century collision of cultures that still affects our world today. -- Leslie M. Harris, author of In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863
Buried Beneath the City unearths a new vista, the remains of the days before Europeans arrived and of lost quotidian life since. Take a revealing self-guided underground expedition through material evidence that sheds light on the periods and people neglected by the documentary record. -- Sam Roberts, author of A History of New York in 101 Objects
This is a terrific book, one well worthy of reading. Writing a book accessible to all readers, the authors present the complexities and the unique contributions of archaeological excavation and thorough research on the recovered artifacts to our understanding of the panorama of human occupation of a living city. I applaud the authors for their success. -- Martha Zierden, coauthor of Charleston: An Archeology of Life in a Coastal Community

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