unearthing chicago: the most recent fragment assemblages from multiple dig sites

i've been spending great lengths of time reviewing images taken from various excavation sites, privy pits and other underground spaces to include in the highly-anticipated "unearthing chicago" hardcover book due out by the end of the this year.

at times i feel my eyeballs are going to drop out of my head after opening one folder after another filled with hundreds of images, of bottles, bottle shards, chinaware, coal, unusual and unearthly looking clumps of industrial by-products, animal bones, clam shells, buttons, pipes, insulators, shoes, newspaper, coins, medallions, toothbrushes, combs, axe heads and on and on.

as i click one image to the next, i'm just floored by the vast amount of artifacts (or "rubbish" in their time), and at just how much has been left behind by the people of 19th and early 20th century chicago. of course the frequency and quantity of artifacts greatly increases as you push past 1900, but what interest me most are the artifacts stemming from the time when chicago as a city was in its infancy (see richly colored green 1840's-1850's open pontiled bottle base fragment discovered in downtown chicago).

despite my interest in early chicago, the content of the book is driven largely by what i have managed to find in the privy pits and excavations i've had access to. are there several other sites where others are concurrently digging? absolutely. i cannot be everywhere at once. in fact, i need to constantly remind myself that i run a business, which allows me the freedom to jump at a moment's notice when i get a call or text that bottles have been found at this or that site.

there is so much "data" out there, and one will be able to see some of it through my findings, in the form of this book. i hope at the very least that it will give the reader a glimpse of what the people of a different time - a different chicago - left behind, under our feet, waiting to be discovered. i'm doing my part and i hope others expressing the same interest or passion will do theirs, whether it's in chicago or some other city.

nearly all of the material that will be included in this book dates between 1840-1930, with an emphasis on anything and everything prior to the great chicago fire of 1871. the assemblages in the gallery below are nestled within this time period. a few more excavations are looming in the immediate future, and there is a good chance that more pre-fire artifacts will be added to the book before it goes to the printer.