Posted on 09/26/2017 2:11:27 PM PDT by Red Badger
BOSTON (CBS) — Workers digging at the Paul Revere house in the city’s North End believe they may have found an archaeological jackpot that could give them a unique window into history–the Revere family outhouse.
The possible privy site was discovered Monday, and diggers were attempting to open it up Tuesday to investigate.
Archeological dig going on outside Paul Revere's House in the North End. What will they find? pic.twitter.com/1rBgv7hAL5
— Doug Cope (@dcopewbz) September 26, 2017
City Archaeologist Joe Bagley told WBZ NewsRadio 1030’s Doug Cope that a find like this is important because people back in the Colonial Era threw a lot of stuff in their privies–stuff that could give insight into their lives.
“You’d fill it up with you-know-what, and then also your household waste, because everyone threw their trash out into that,” Bagley said. “We’re hoping to find the individuals’ waste themselves, which, we can get seeds from what they were eating, we can find parasites, find out what their health was, but then everything else that they threw out from their house.”
He said the team found a four-by-six-foot brick rectangle–too small to be the foundation for a house or a shed.
Pouring over potential artifacts from 1700's at archeological dig on Revere family property in the North End. pic.twitter.com/ng2lehT79T
— Doug Cope (@dcopewbz) September 26, 2017
“Typically what you would do is you would dig a big pit, you’d line it with bricks,” Bagley said. “You typically would also line it with clay, because you didn’t want the contents to leach into your well.”
But the only way to confirm the true nature of the find was to dig into the potentially gross contents.
“We love finding privies,” said Bagley. “We think we have one. The only way to find out is to dig down into it and see if it has that nightsoil–that kind of smelly, dark soils which are now composted and not that bad, but they might have a stench still, a little bit.”
Digging in what might have been Revere family privy outside Paul Revere house in the North End. Pieces of coal found pic.twitter.com/DnP9IYvBk5
— Doug Cope (@dcopewbz) September 26, 2017
The archaeological team has already found the handle to a German-made beer stein from the 1700s, as well as pieces of coal.
“If we start finding thousands of artifacts, then we really know we’re in a really important feature,” Bagley said.
Piece of beer stein from the 1700's found at archeological dig outside Revere family property in the North End. pic.twitter.com/JN1tOhnvDB
— Doug Cope (@dcopewbz) September 26, 2017
Bagley said that there was a law in place in Boston starting in 1650 mandating that every household dig their privy at least six feet deep–but that doesn’t mean everyone followed the law.
“I expect that, at most, we’ll have to go down that full six feet,” Bagley said. “I hope it’s six feet deep, because that gives us the best opportunity to find a lot of things from multiple families.”
The home has been a fixture in the North End since around 1711.
GROSS.......GGGross....................
#1 if by land, #2 if by sea
One if by land and two if it’s more than pee?
Big enough for a smoke house. We have one preserved in our area.
The possible privy site was discovered Monday, and diggers were attempting to open it up Tuesday to investigate.
**************
I wonder what this “dig” cost? Who pays for this ridiculous stuff?
This could be a treasure trove. They used toilets to dump all their personal stuff that was broken or not used anymore.
Hopefully someone will demand that the Privacy Act be invoked and thus stopping this invasion of Paul Revere’s Privicy.
Betting not privy but a Smoke house...pieces of coal were found.
I studied archeology and privy diving is really standard. A lot of it was done in Philadelphia. One studies the clean artifacts and tries not to imagine where they came from.
Where do you get a degree in Crapology?
And, they found broken stuff - pottery, etc. - at the bottom! Great find at the cost of quite a bit of taxpayers' money.
Putting the ‘colon’ in colonial.
Listen my children, cause this is it.
Where Paul Revere took a ____.
(deep and sincere apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
any major university will teach you a bunch of s#it...
Just don't tell us about the corn kernels...ok?
That would be a Political Science Degree..................
Absolutely. Why dig another hole? Archaeologists love this stuff.
... to find the individuals’ waste themselves, which, we can get seeds from what they were eating, we can find parasites, find out what their health was ...
= = =
Sounds like a good beginning of a SCI FI. Plant those seeds which will take over all farms. Release those parasites for which we have no resistance.
Well maybe Jurassic Park already did that.
May you be hung from a spreading chestnut tree................Longfellow’s ghost.............
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