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What lies beneath Digging into New York's ancient past Archived article from Dec 7, 2001 By Carla Capizzi Once, primeval forests of spruce, fir and pine towered over open tundra where herds of elk, caribou and mastodons roamed freely. Today, gleaming towers of granite and steel pierce the skies, and masses of human bodies surge through canyons of concrete. What a difference 11,000 years make in the life of a city, even the greatest city in the world, New York. The concept of an ancient New York is a somewhat startling one to most modern Americans, whose idea of old New York rarely stretches earlier than Henry Hudson. But it is a topic of great personal and professional interest to Newark Associate Professor Anne-Marie Cantwell and the subject of her book, "Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City." The work, co-written with Diana diZerega Wall of City College of New York, sifts through the layers of materials left behind by countless generations of inhabitants, beginning with the first Native Americans.
"New York is always considered a forward-looking city, a city of the future," notes Cantwell, whose Newark campus office offers a striking view of the Manhattan skyline. "It is, but it also has a deep, rich history." What lies beneath the city -- remnants of buildings, tools, burial grounds, garbage dumps and the like -- provided Cantwell with a wealth of clues about the various native and European settlers who came and went over the millennia, leaving their permanent mark upon the land, for better or for worse. "Archaeology is an attempt to construct a collective memory and to remember those who have gone before us," says Cantwell. "From studying the past, we can learn to appreciate the sacrifices of others. We can see how past generations suffered terrible catastrophes as well as great triumphs. And through it all, there is the resilience of the human spirit," she explains. "The human spirit endures, and people adapt. Life goes on, in different ways. It's a powerful lesson -- the past is powerful -- with meaning for today." The first New Yorkers So what have Cantwell and other archaeologists learned about the peoples who lived in New York before there was an Empire State Building -- or an Empire State, for that matter? The first settlers, the Paleo-indians, arrived about 11,000 years ago, after the glaciers receded, when the area we know now as New York was hundreds of miles inland. Remnants of their tools, found in modern Staten Island, and knowledge of the geography of the period indicate they were nomadic tribes of hunters, gatherers and fishers. Little is known of their daily life, their rituals or their cultures, since most evidence of their existence has disappeared. "Unearthing Gotham" begins with these Paleoindians and then traces the area's growth through the various stages of Woodland inhabitants, who first arrived a mere 2,700 years ago -- their descendants greeted the first Europeans -- to the more recent colonial past. Much more is known of these later inhabitants, especially those in the last few centuries, since more of their artifacts survived to be discovered by early archaeologists, both professional and "avo-cational." It was the avocational, or amateur, archaeologists who explored New York's past before the professionals took an interest in the city. "These New York artifacts aren't as glitzy as Egyptian or Greek or even Southwestern ones and, in the early days, most archaeological digs were funded by museums seeking impressive objects to display. So the professionals didn't dig in New York -- the avocational archaeologists did," Cantwell recounts. How did they live? Cantwell's book, researched and written over a 10-year period, paints an especially vivid portrait of the last few centuries of New York life, sharing insights gleaned from examining sites ranging from old structures to shell and garbage heaps to privy pits. All provide clues to past lives. Piles of shells and animal bones say much about early diets; shards of dishes can offer glimpses into the social niceties of entertaining colonial guests; and burial customs reveal attitudes toward the afterlife, as well as the social status of the deceased. For instance, Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam continued to eat much of their traditional European fare of beef, pork and chicken, but also expanded their diets to include the game, fish and vegetables they found in their "new" land, such as venison, water fowl, striped bass, maize, beans and squash. Although archaeologists expected to discover that type of assimilation, they were somewhat surprised to determine, based on their research, that the colonial cooks prepared and served these non-European foods in traditionally Dutch ways, using Dutch vessels such as three-footed pots, ceramic skillets and tin-glazed plates. As a modern archaeologist, Cantwell is interested "in information, not artifacts. I have a question: 'How did these ancient people live?' and I want to answer it." Gone are the days when archaeologists were treasure-hunters and grave robbers, seeking artifacts for museums. "Modern archaeologists want to preserve sites, not excavate them, unless they are threatened by construction. The emphasis today is on stewardship." Cantwell and her co-author have excavated several sites in the city, but they have also reanalyzed century-old collections held in museums, such as the American Museum of Natural History and the South Street Seaport Museum. European impact Several themes run through "Unearthing Gotham" and have a direct bearing on the modern city. The Europeans did not find a wilderness or a new world -- they simply resettled an existing land, Cantwell and her co-author note. Moreover, the Europeans drastically transformed the land -- through leveling hills, cutting forests, draining swamps and adding landfill to create new land -- so that the Indians' previous way of interacting with the environment was no longer possible. In the process of laying the groundwork for the urban landscape that exists today, the social relations of the peoples who lived on the land were, in turn, permanently altered. For example, the first commuter suburbs in the world were created in New York some two centuries ago in Greenwich Village, Brooklyn Heights, Jersey City and Hoboken. Cantwell argues that "the present is so deeply rooted in the past that … it can be difficult to know where you are, let alone where you are going, unless you first know where you have been." The archaeological record, she says, "bears singular witness to where we all once were." It is a record that must be preserved and passed on to future generations, who, it is hoped, will value it, learn from it and then pass it along to their descendants. "We are all heirs to a great estate, the past, which belongs to everyone. It is truly common ground." Looking at the city Viewing a modern city as an archaeological site and studying both its urban and its pre-urban past constitute a radically new way of looking at an American city. It is not only novel but also intimidating to consider New York today, with its millions of people carrying out their daily tasks on its surface, as a site that contains hidden beneath it the material remains of the ways of life of hundreds of generations of earlier peoples who once carried out their daily tasks there. -- From "Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City" by Anne-Marie Cantwell and Diana diZerega Wall
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