“YOURS FOR $24”: THE RICHNESS OF MANHATTAN’S BURIED ARCHEOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES

In 1626 Dutch merchant Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island from the Munsee Indians for $24 worth of trinkets. At that time, Manhattan’s topography was steep to undulating, preserving many of the glacial features characteristic of a terminal moraine setting. The rapid pace of urban development during the Dutch, English, American colonial and industrial ages left a complex but well stratified urban landscape that has been exposed by the past few decades of urban archeology. Excavations have revealed deeply buried surfaces and remnant littoral and terrestrial features providing time lines of dynamic prehistoric and historic environments. Sequences bearing on occupation since Paleoindian times are preserved. Holocene shoreline reconstructions help model rates of sea level rise. The urban fill stratigraphy illustrates how the early Euroamericans modified shorelines to stabilize Manhattan Island and to establish this location as the nation’s primary commercial center.