A 19th Century Map of the Arch Street Project excavation site reveals that a felt hat factory was later built on top of part of the original cemetery. The map cites the owner as “P. Hirst and son”. Subsequent archival research by the team’s principle historian, Nick Bonneau, has revealed that the hat factory owner was actually P. Herst and that the factory only... Read More
Cleaning the bones of the adult male from grave G-155 of the Arch Street Project provided us with a fascinating window into what life would have been like for someone living in the 1700s or early 1800s in Philadelphia. The image here shows the left and right tibiae from this individual, and it is easy to see that they are not the same. The tibia on the top is normal, whereas the tibia on the bottom shows evidence of a break or fracture in the bone which has subsequently healed.... Read More
It was a little over a year ago that Jerry Conlogue and his students from... Read More
A couple of weeks ago the volunteers cleaning remains, led by Kim Eberle-Wang, in the summer Mutter pop-up lab made an interesting discovery – mysterious blue markings on some of the bones they were cleaning from G-260. What could it be? Was it intentional? Was it some sort of strange mold? Thanks to the sleuthing skills of Dr. Allison Grunwald, our blue substance was determined to be vivianite. The damp, iron-rich... Read More
During the Fall Semester (Sept - Dec 2017), Kimberlee Moran ran a "Bones and Bioarchaeology" class at Rutgers-Camden to connect students to the Arch Street project. Over 14 weeks students learned archaeological and anthropological basics within the context of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia's cemetery. Students helped to clean and assess some of the remains at Rutgers-Camden and helped to organize material culture and human remains at our off-campus facility. As a final... Read More
