Dig at Bunker Hill Monument turns history tangible

Archaeologists in Boston’s Charlestown say a map-led excavation near the Bunker Hill Monument has confirmed a ditch dug hours before the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775—turning a beloved memorial landscape into a vivid, touchable reminder of the Revolut

BOSTON — For generations. families have spread out blankets on the grassy. sloping lawns around the Bunker Hill Monument. picnicking and taking in the view. Now. just a short distance from those steps and shaded benches. archaeologists are pulling up objects that were dropped into the ground while the battle itself was still underway.

The excavation in Boston’s Charlestown section is aimed at finding the earthen fort the American patriots hastily constructed to slow advancing British forces—the fight that became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. Ground-penetrating radar helped identify potential locations. After the team dug the first trench. they found definitive signs of a ditch constructed hours before the battle on June 17. 1775. one of the first major clashes of the American Revolution.

Joe Bagley, the city of Boston’s archaeologist, watched soil being removed in small increments—about 4 inches (10 centimeters) at a time—shoved into buckets, then filtered through screens. Any items found are bagged up and identified.

“What’s really crazy to me is that we get to stand in the same ditch,” Bagley said, standing over one of the two dig sites.

So far, the excavation has turned up musket balls and parts of a musket from the battle. The team has also uncovered items they say were likely left behind by British troops who occupied the area after the fighting, including tea cups, tobacco pipes, sleeve buttons and a wig curler.

There were nearly 150 combatants who died there, but no human remains have been found so far. A forensic archaeologist is on site to identify any bones if they turn up.

“Everything about the ditch is from 1775. You’ve got musket balls, gun flints. It’s what you would expect to see,” Bagley said. “It’s pretty powerful because these things are being dropped in the middle of the battle.”

The battle itself. the story of its beginnings. and even the way Americans remember it are tied to other dates as much as to this moment. The start of the American Revolution is often associated with the skirmishes fought on April 19, 1775, at Lexington and Concord. But many scholars cite Bunker Hill and June 17 as the war’s first significant battle.

The rebels’ plan was to hold off a possible British attack by fortifying Bunker Hill. a 110-foot-high (34-meter-high) slope in Charlestown across the Charles River from British-occupied Boston. For reasons still unclear. they instead took a position on a smaller ridge known as Breed’s Hill. where most of the fighting took place.

The battle ended with the rebels in retreat, but not before British forces sustained more than 1,000 casualties. Bunker Hill is often portrayed as an American victory because the British failed to win decisively and the fight helped galvanize the colonies against the British.

Today, a 221-foot (67-meter) white obelisk atop Breed’s Hill memorializes the battle.

For the excavation team. the question has been whether the fortifications could be located clearly enough to make the landscape match the record. Bagley said previous digging in the 1990s had found items related to the battle and some evidence of the ditches. but the fortifications themselves were not visible in any straightforward way.

A map drawn by Henry Pelham two months after the battle showed a square redoubt on Breed’s Hill. Bagley said it wasn’t until the dig that anyone had confirmed the shape shown on that map was accurate.

Using pick axes and shovels. more than 1. 000 provincials and residents dug through the night to construct a ditch 3 feet (1 meter) deep and over 6 feet (2 meters) wide. They shoveled the soil in front of the ditch to make a 6-foot-high wall or parapet that reached 150 feet (46 meters) long on each of the four sides.

“When you come to the site. we have the monument. we have a lot of maps on display. and the landscape is beautiful. But you can’t really see the fort, the fortifications that were built,” Bagley said. “Very little of what’s here visibly is from 1775. So, this trench is the reason why all of this is here.”.

At the dig site. Joel Bohy. a battlefield archaeologist who specializes in identifying American Revolution weaponry. was struck by what volunteers have been uncovering. One volunteer held in her hand two jagged stones: the gray one an English gun flint. the beige one a French gun flint. When the trigger on the musket was pulled, flint struck the steel, producing sparks that ignited the gunpowder.

The team has found eight marble-sized musket balls from both sides. Bohy said the markings and shape of some bullets suggest they were fired from a distance but didn’t hit anyone; if they had, the balls would have been deformed.

“You can see the ramrod mark from when the soldier rammed it down. You can the little ring on the top where it was pushed down,” Bohy said. “Marks on the edge of the ball” show that it had been fired.

Standing in the same space where the memorial’s lawns have long invited visitors to linger, the dig has given the battle a new physical immediacy. Bohy described it as a way of letting people hold a part of what happened.

“In a way, it makes the history more dimensional when you look at these objects from the battle itself,” he said.

Tourists have felt that shift too. Several visitors from Colorado stopped by to watch the work. One visitor, Greg Nockleby, said he had spent a week in Boston learning about American history, and that seeing the archaeologists at work was “a wonderful surprise.”

“A live dig happening right now to uncover our nation’s history is amazing,” Nockleby said. “To see that there has been people here who have died for our freedom and our nation is very immersive.”

On Wednesday. a church service in Charlestown will be followed by a procession that makes its way to the Bunker Hill Monument. A remembrance ceremony there will include a wreath-laying, a moment of silence and a musket firing demonstration. The dig is scheduled to end Wednesday as well—leaving behind. for a future generation. a clearer picture of the fortifications that once shaped the fight.

Bunker Hill Charlestown archaeologists musket balls American Revolution ground-penetrating radar June 17 1775 Henry Pelham map Bunker Hill Monument