Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City [Hardcover]

Anne-Marie Cantwell (Author), Diana diZerega Wall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2001

Under the teeming metropolis that is present-day New York City lie the buried remains of long-lost worlds. The remnants of nineteenth-century New York reveal much about its inhabitants and neighbourhoods, from fashionable Washington Square to the notorious Five Points. Underneath there are traces of the Dutch and English colonists who arrived in the area in the seventeenth century, as well as of the Africans they enslaved. And beneath all these layers is the land that Native Americans occupied for hundreds of generations from their first arrival eleven thousand years ago. Now two distinguished archaeologists draw on the results of more than a century of excavations to relate the interconnected stories of these different peoples who shared and shaped the land that makes up the modern city. In treating New York's five boroughs as one enormous archaeological site, Anne-Marie Cantwell and Diana diZerega Wall weave Native American, colonial, and post-colonial history into an absorbing, panoramic narrative. They also describe the work of the archaeologists who uncovered this evidence - nineteenth-century pioneers, concerned citizens, and today's professionals. In the process, Cantwell and Wall raise provocative questions about the nature of cities, urbanisation, the colonial experience, Indian life, the family, and the use of space. Engagingly written and abundantly illustrated, Unearthing Gotham offers a fresh perspective on the richness of the American legacy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rutgers's Cantwell and City College's Wall, anthropologists both, track the evolving practice of urban archeology, and document much of what it has uncovered (and is still uncovering) in the Big Apple. From the oldest remnants of Native Manhattanites to 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century detritus, Cantwell and Wall explore how archeologists painstakingly expose and determine the past as well as the objects they find. Continually surprising objects of great import the intricate nature and use of "wampum beads"; a full crate of wine bottles from a Wall Street store lost in the great 1835 fire; children's toys and mugs from mid-19th century middle-class homes balance the book's academic underpinnings with its obvious intention to entertain and to illuminate the past. Whether dealing with the discovery of glass urinals found behind a brothel in the notorious Five Points section of the city, or an extraordinarily moving account of the preservation of a colonial African-American burial ground uncovered during excavation for a new high-rise in lower Manhattan, the authors are always mindful of the endless battle between embracing new growth and respecting and safeguarding the past. (Oct.)Forecast: New York's many Gotham-centered museums and store shelves should be a source of steady, if slow, sales to curious browsers, and introductory urban archeology courses should pick this up as a central text. The multicultural evidence provided by many of the discoveries could make this a stockable title in other urban centers with analogous histories.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

Co-winner of the 2002 Society for American Archaeology Book Award, Winner of The New York Society Library's 2002 Book Award for History --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300084153
• ISBN-13: 978-0300084153
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #873,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Old (Very Old) New York Unearthed For the Future, November 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City (Hardcover)

Imaginative and graceful writing, based on a firm foundation of archaeological and historical evidence, make this book enormously appealing. Underlying the authors' speculations and conclusions is a vast amount of ecological and artifactual evidence, prehistoric and historic. Cantwell and Wall discuss the ways people have built their dwellings, made their livings, coped with adversity, celebrated successes, and performed various rituals in and around New York's changing ecological and social environment for the past 11,000 years.

"Unearthing Gotham" is enhanced by a beautifully selected set of illustrations ranging from early stone points found in Staten Island through archaeological site maps, drawings of New Amsterdam from the 1620's, a lithograph view of Five Points around 1827 to the Van Cortlandt Mansion in the 1990's.

In view of the recent Trade Center catastrophe, this book is particularly reassuring. Given the continuing efforts of preservationists, New York's long history in all its diversity will not only be preserved for the future, but that history will continue to be made. I strongly recommend "Unearthing Gotham" to anyone interested in archaeology, history, the long life of a great city, and New York itself.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Marvelous Book, July 19, 2002

By 

Lion G. Miles (Stockbridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City (Hardcover)

This is the very best book one could have if he is interested in the early history of New York City and the area immediately surrounding it. The coverage of Native Americans is especially strong, fascinating from beginning to end. The authors know their subject thoroughly, write beautifully, and have given us an exciting, scholarly work that will be a classic for some time to come.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New York's underground history, February 28, 2002

By 

Jon Hunt "musician, teacher" (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City (Hardcover)

New York, like no other city in the world, is a city of spectacular heights and many books have been written about the buildings that rise to the skies. How many people, however, think about what lies beneath the vast weight of edifices and human life that exists above the ground? In this compelling and instructive book, Anne-Marie Cantwell and Diana diZerega Wall have a given us a lesson not only about the artifacts and remains that have lain dormant for centuries but also in the history that surrounds their burial and ultimate exposure.

In a time-line fashion (11,000 years before present to today) the authors reconstruct a picture of what life might have been like during these times. Lest one think the unearthings are limited to Manhattan, they are not. All five boroughs are represented. There were moments during the reading of this book that I wanted the authors to spend more time recounting the actual excavations to which they refer, but in the end their historical perspective is the link that saves the day. Without it, their offerings would be no more than a field trip.

My future trips around the city will be made with a new awareness as I ask myself, "I wonder what lies beneath....". It is a question we all can ask.