Dan Eichinger – shares a ‘Day of Archaeology’ (07/25/13)
Dan Eichinger
I am an archaeological supervisor for URS Corporation (Burlington, New Jersey, USA), directing fieldwork in Fishtown (a neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) for the I-95 highway renovation project. A day in Cultural Resource Management does not always begin in the manner most people would assume a typical archaeological project does. For instance, overnight thunderstorms left our excavations filled with water that had drained off the overpass. So our day began with the running of pumps and hand-bailing of rain water. Heavy equipment was utilized to move said pumps and channelize 100’s of gallons of water away from the excavations. Eventually, our muddy archaeology day really began, wet feet and pants, aching backs, and numbed senses aside. We investigated A-horizons beneath the shadow of the I95 overpass that were luckily left intact in spite of hundreds of years of urban development and the construction of I95 itself. These excavations yielded artifacts that are associated with the everyday lives of glass blowers whom worked in the numerous local bottling works, which were once located along the banks of the Delaware River. Also encountered was evidence of the area’s earlier occupants; today’s finds included evidence for Late Archaic Native American tool making activities.
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