Background: Native Americans Site in Philadelphia
Long before the founding of the City of Philadelphia Native American people made this area their home for many thousands of years, and established their camps and villages along the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, and near the many streams that crossed the interior landscape. The earliest people, called PaleoIndians by archaeologists, probably came to the vicinity of Philadelphia by at least 10,000–12,000 years ago. When Dutch and Swedish colonists came to this area in the 17th century, Native groups — members of the Lenape tribe — lived here, and those same people greeted William Penn when he stepped onto these shores in 1682. For many years after, Native people lived alongside European colonists and even continued visiting Philadelphia into the early 1800s to trade furs for iron tools, guns, and other desired commodities.
Despite the long presence of Native Americans in the area, and the many thousands of artifacts that Native peoples must have left behind on the landscape, many archaeologists have long accepted as “common wisdom” the belief that no Native America sites were likely to still survive in the city. In large measure, this belief was based on what was known about the 300-year process of constructing the modern city.
As Philadelphia grew over time, and larger, more intrusive buildings, roads, and other structures were added or replaced earlier ones, old shallow ground surfaces in which Native artifacts lay buried were dug up or built over, and the original environment was transformed to suit the needs of a growing industrial metropolis.
Although construction and development have certainly destroyed many of the Native American encampments and villages that once dotted the landscape, recent discoveries have revealed that not all of these important sites have been obliterated. They may be elusive and difficult to find, but they have not been completely removed. This tour will highlight the handful of Native sites recently discovered within the center city sections of Philadelphia, share some of the artifacts recovered from them, and will show where and how they have survived despite the direct encroachment of the historical and modern cityscape. These are not the only Native sites found in Philadelphia, but rather the ones that have been found in what might be considered the least likely, most archaeologically inhospitable parts of the city.
The key factors involved in the preservation and discovery of undisturbed Native sites in Philadelphia relate to three primary questions: What did the original landscape within the city look like and where within that landscape were Native sites most likely to have been once located? How has the original landscape been progressively altered by development over the years? What areas within the modern city are likely to have preserved portions of the original landscape, within which Native American sites could be found?
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