REU: The Seneca Village Project: Developing an Archeological Research Design

Cuny City College, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

In this project, undergraduates will participate in one phase of the archaeological study of Seneca Village, a 19th-Century African-American and Irish immigrant community located in today's Central Park. The project will consist of three parts. The first will include historical research with the goal of identifying the various buildings that made up the village and the various people who lived and worked in them, as well as the locations and extent of the Village's three cemeteries. The second part will involve working with a geophysicist and geophysical equipment to ascertain whether or not archaeological remains of the village survive intact in the ground and, if so, to identify the people with whom they were associated by means of the historical data. The third part will involve integrating both the historical and geophysical data to construct a research design addressing questions related to the construction of class and race in mid-19th -century New York. The students will be selected from the colleges that belong to the New York City Archaeological Consortium, i.e., the colleges of the City University, Columbia University, and New York University. In addition to learning the fundamentals of historical research and geophysical remote sensing techniques, the students will learn how to use the data that they will have gathered from two very different kinds of sources in generating a research design. These problem-solving skills will help to equip them for graduate study and encourage them to consider it seriously.