The fieldwork part of archaeology is often what gets the most attention: the excitement that something buried for decades, centuries, or more is about to be revealed is undeniable, and most archaeologists love the sense of discovery that comes with the process of excavation.
However, most archaeologists would also agree that the crucial — and sometimes overlooked — part of archaeology is what comes after the field. Most projects will produce material that must be cleaned and processed in the lab. Perhaps most importantly, the findings must be synthesized and reported, with maps, charts, tables and figures to illustrate. It is time-consuming, painstaking, sometimes tedious work, but it is ultimately what separates archaeology as a discipline from relic hunting. (Article continues below photo gallery.)
University of New Orleans students Courtney Mahler and Madison Mollere sort soil samples from layers dating to the French colonial era at St. Louis Cathedral. Photograph by D. Ryan Gray.
University of New Orleans student Madison Mollere shows a blue glass bead and fragments of straight pins recovered from soil samples from St. Louis Cathedral. Photograph by D. Ryan Gray.
University of New Orleans research associate Elizabeth Williams works while crowds stroll through Jackson Square. Photograph by D. Ryan Gray.
University of New Orleans students screen soils directly into a trailer provided by Abry Brothers in front of St. Louis Cathedral. Photograph by D. Ryan Gray.
Small fragments of hand-painted, French tin-glazed pottery, or faience. Photograph by Courtney Mahler.
This is the stage at which we now find ourselves in the archaeological research on St. Louis Cathedral, previously reported in the February/March 2024 issue of Preservation in Print. In the fieldwork portion of this project, we documented a complex construction sequence beneath the present-day cathedral. It spanned successive renovations and expansions of what was then still the Parish Church of Saint Louis, the destruction by the 1788 fire, a post-fire reconstruction on a larger footprint, and the eventual creation of the building that stands on the site today.
Some of those events left more evidence behind than others; the four excavation areas we documented together have left an unparalleled architectural history of this space that was so central to the identity of New Orleans.
Archaeologists screen the soils they excavate to collect artifacts systematically, and we were able to improvise spaces to do this up to a point at the cathedral. However, because the deepest layers in the ground at the cathedral were so clayey and mucky, we were concerned that traditional screening might miss small objects, like beads or bits of hand-built pottery. We decided to bag these soils and screen all of them off-site, using running water and a very fine mesh. Anything that doesn’t pass through the screen must then be fine sorted in the lab.
Once that process is complete, the analysis and interpretation phase of the project gets underway. While there are some materials we send to specialists for analyses or conservation, we try to involve students at the University of New Orleans in the process as much as possible. They research the city’s material culture and compare what has been found in this site with others, both in New Orleans and farther afield. Some will present their results in scholarly settings, while others are developing digital exhibits to archive that work.
This means that there are still some surprises coming from the excavation at the cathedral, even months after the fieldwork has been completed. It has been an exciting year for the University of New Orleans Archaeology Department, as our lab and curation facility gets ready to relocate to a new space in UNO’s Earl K. Long Library. Once it is completed, it will include new facilities for preserving and displaying our collections.
Later this fall, a new website devoted to the city’s archaeology will go live, and we’ll have content hosted there and on our lab’s CatalogIt page. Its part of our mission to share information about the archaeology of New Orleans with the public, both in this project and in many more.
Dr. D. Ryan Gray is the chair of Anthropology and Sociology and Associate Director of the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies at the University of New Orleans.
