St. Antoine's Archaeology Project
Overview
St. Anthony's Garden is the name given to the green space located behind New Orleans' iconic St. Louis Cathedral in the heart of the French Quarter.
No site quite like St. Anthony’s Garden has ever been excavated in the state of Louisiana. In terms of preservation conditions, archaeological features, and historic import, it is akin to Louisiana’s Jamestown or Plymouth Plantation -- two other colonial centers that might be better understood through comparison with this other American foundation story.
In just three small areas opened in the 2008 field season, the site has exceeded expectations in its ability to reveal how the early city was constructed -- from the form of its earliest temporary architecture (ca. 1717-1726) and the meals that Governor Bienville’s pioneers were eating, to the unexpected influence of Native Americans in the form of hybrid pottery, decorated pipe bowls, and a hut with an axe-hewn rectangular European form and possible palmetto thatch walls of Native American technique. The team hopes to return to the site in 2009 to extend the excavation of what looks to be the most significant colonial-era archaeological site thus far investigated in New Orleans.
 2008 Fieldwork
From June to July 2008, Shannon Dawdy, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, headed the St. Anthony Garden Archaeology Project in collaboration with the St. Louis Cathedral of the New Orleans Archdiocese and with financial support from the Getty Foundation. The archaeological investigation was one component of the planning phase for the restoration of the historic landscape of the garden, which was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
The Getty Foundation is supporting an interdisciplinary and international effort to study and redesign the garden, with a projected completion date of January 2010. The focus of the Summer 2008 archaeological investigation concentrated on answering questions regarding former landscape features and the recovery of botanical remains that will inform the restoration.
Project members recorded features, recovered artifacts, and collected soil samples to aid in the reconstruction of planting practices in the space from the French colonial period through to the mid-20th century. The space overlaps or encompasses at least four historic gardens: an early 1700s food garden cultivated by the French Capuchins, the kitchen garden of Pere Antoine (a beloved figure in local history) dating ca. 1780-1820, a landscaped public park dating to the antebellum period that featured an ice cream pavilion and flower mart, and the cathedral's formal garden in the space which dates to the Civil War era.
However, during the course of excavation several unexpected and remarkable discoveries related to other aspects of the site's history, and to the colonial founding of New Orleans, were made (go to Highlights to learn more).
 Research
Many people do not realize that the French Quarter has very little of its French heritage left in architectural form. The Ursuline Convent (ca. 1745-1752) is the only standing structure from the French period that survives in New Orleans today due to two devastating fires that struck the city in the Spanish colonial period in 1788 and 1794. Therefore, the kind of information that material culture can provide on the processes of colonization and creolization in the French period lies almost entirely below ground in the form of archaeological deposits.
The St. Antoine's Garden Project fits into a larger long-term effort to understand the economic and ecological factors that helped shape New Orleans' unique creole culture. How and when did African, Native American, and European colonial residents exchange knowledge about plants, medicines, and foods? Or share technical know-how regarding architecture or other material aspects of daily life (how to tan a deer hide, or how to make a ceramic pot)? In what situations were these exchanges most likely to occur?
The St. Antoine's Project promises to answer many of the questions raised by some of the earlier archaeological projects undertaken in the French Quarter and nearby neighborhoods, such as those at Madame John's Legacy (Dawdy 1998) Treme Plantation by Dr. Christopher Matthews (1999). But perhaps the most important comparison will be to the Rising Sun Hotel site, excavated by Dawdy and Earth Search, Inc. in 2005, which uncovered the first protohistoric site identified in the French Quarter (dating to the mid-1600s) and a very well-preserved household garden dating to the French colonial period (ca. 1720s-1750s).
 Public Archaeology
Nine University of Chicago students and over 15 local volunteers assisted with the excavation. The project consisted of archaeological investigations of the garden space between Royal Street and St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter. The central location of the site made it a perfect opportunity for project members to engage in public archaeology and interface with locals and tourists on a daily basis. Over 300 volunteers visited us during an open house on July 1, 2008, and the project was followed by local media and national media (to go Links).
 Future Plans
While deposits and features likely associated with each of the garden episodes on the site were identified during the 2008 excavations, several unexpected discoveries relating to other aspects of the site's use bear further investigation and the team hopes to return in 2009 and eventually compare the findings to another significant colonial garden and public space in the French Quarter -- the Ursuline Convent Garden. We are currently pursuing grants to execute the first multi-site archaeological research plan designed for the French Quarter, focusing on intercultural exchanges during the period of its French colonial founding (1717-1768).
News
Update of August 2009:
We are delighted to announce that with funding support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation, the University of Chicago team is returning to the site to extend excavations in early autumn 2009. The project is now part of a comprehensive three-year study focused on the ecological and economic practices of New Orleans' early colonial residents. The aims of this next season are to produce more data from the well-preserved French colonial deposits in order to learn more about interactions among Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment of the Humanities.
Update of February 2009:
The first volume of the field report for the 2008 season was completed in January and is available upon request. It reports the results of field excavations and archaeobotanical analysis to inform the garden's redesign. Laboratory processing of cultural artifacts is ongoing by students at the University of Chicago, with the basic analysis projected to be completed by the end of the summer.
In January, Dr. Dawdy gave a public lecture in New Orleans on the preliminary results of the excavations and also installed a small exhibit on the project in the museum galleries at the Old Ursuline Convent (open to the public with admission).
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