FORGOTTEN LANDSCAPES - GEOPHYSICAL-BASED RECONSTRUCTIONS OF THE NORTHERN DECLIVITY DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR BATTLE OF BUNKERS HILL, CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS

On June 17th, 1775 a rag-tag group of colonial rabble-rousers fortified a drumlin in Charlestown, Massachusetts known as Bunkers Hill. The hasty fortification included earthworks and stonewalls. Battle reconstructions from diary accounts of British officers recount the vicious fighting and rough location of the fortifications. The Battle, the first major battle of the Revolutionary War that included vessel-based artillery, was a strategic victory for the British who captured the high ground and a moral victory for the colonists who inflicted heavy loses on seasoned British troops.

The Battle was commemorated with a 67 m (220 ft) obelisk atop Bunkers Hill and a rough reconstruction with markers of the several of the defensive positions of the colonists. The memorial site occupies approximately 5 acres on top of the Hill. Based on battle reconstructions, fortifications extended down the north-face flank of the hill toward the shoreline of the Mystic River. After the war, the British and Colonial killed were buried in shallow mass graves at various locations throughout the battlefield.

In November 2008 a combined team of geologists, archaeologists and historians gathered to begin a research project on the site to locate the mass gravesites and exact position of the Colonial defensive structures. Armed with volumes of historical documentation, the team employed high-resolution ground penetrating radar to search for an area known as the “Northern Declivity”. British officers and 19th c. antiquaries reported this site as the location of one of the British mass grave and the northeastern end of the Colonial earthen breastwork.

Research on the site is ongoing and the team intends to expand its search to locate any of the American mass gravesites, reconstruct the shape of the redoubt and clarify nature of the fortifications connecting the breastwork and the rail fence. Additionally, the team intends to locate the 1775 shoreline of the Mystic River (along today's Medford Street), site of the initial British attack. The research will be aided by topographic landscape reconstructions based on 2005 LiDAR and historic shoreline representations.