Babies In The Well: An Underground Insight Into Deviant Behavior In Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia
Babies In The Well: An Underground Insight Into Deviant Behavior In Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia THE RESULTS OF archaeological excavations are generally a combination of the expected and the unexpected. On a recent urban archaeological dig at Head House Square in Philadelphia, among the unexpected findings were the skeletal remains of two human infants, found amid the household debris and other garbage used to fill an abandoned privy pit in the late eighteenth century. Because of the nature of the site and the trash deposit, the archaeological data alone could not supply sufficient information to explain the presence of these bones in such an unlikely context. The unique advantage of historical archaeology, however, is that it can call upon evidence from both archaeological and historical sources to synthesize an understanding of past behavior. In this case, historical sources provide the missing context necessary to explain the presence of human