Radar reveals San Francisco's buried El Presidio
Archaeologists are using cutting-edge technology -- including ground radar and laser scanning -- to uncover vanished walls and dwellings of the original Spanish Presidio of San Francisco...
There are written accounts, pictures and drawings of the fort dating from the late 18th century, but the real El Presidio of Spanish times lies under a couple of streets, a parking lot and lawn that rings Pershing Square, where the main flagpole marks the center of the Presidio as it was in U.S. Army days. [The Presidio is now part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area.]
Archaeologists have been digging for years into the Presidio's past and have come up with more than 80,000 artifacts, buttons, bones, pieces of foundation, crockery, all the remains of 220 years of military occupation.
But only 2 percent of the original Presidio has been dug up to date. "It's still unexcavated and unknown," [archaeologist Eric] Blind said...
The trick is to find what's under the ground without digging everything up, said David Morgan, because once you dig something up, you can destroy it. Morgan is chief of archaeology and collections at the National Center for Preservation Technology. "To remove it, you have to destroy it."...
One of their searches this week was centered on a spot of green lawn about 30 feet southeast of the Presidio's main flagpole...
Wednesday, the archaeologists dug a hole three feet long by about one and a half feet wide, like a surgical strike. Bingo! Under the lawn was some sandstone rocks, the foundations of some outbuildings of the long-ago Presidio...
The Presidio digs are also being used as a classroom to help other archaeologists learn newer cutting edge techniques. It is also useful for archaeology students at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Sonoma State University and San Francisco State, which all have archaeology departments.
Read entire article at San Francisco Chronicle
There are written accounts, pictures and drawings of the fort dating from the late 18th century, but the real El Presidio of Spanish times lies under a couple of streets, a parking lot and lawn that rings Pershing Square, where the main flagpole marks the center of the Presidio as it was in U.S. Army days. [The Presidio is now part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area.]
Archaeologists have been digging for years into the Presidio's past and have come up with more than 80,000 artifacts, buttons, bones, pieces of foundation, crockery, all the remains of 220 years of military occupation.
But only 2 percent of the original Presidio has been dug up to date. "It's still unexcavated and unknown," [archaeologist Eric] Blind said...
The trick is to find what's under the ground without digging everything up, said David Morgan, because once you dig something up, you can destroy it. Morgan is chief of archaeology and collections at the National Center for Preservation Technology. "To remove it, you have to destroy it."...
One of their searches this week was centered on a spot of green lawn about 30 feet southeast of the Presidio's main flagpole...
Wednesday, the archaeologists dug a hole three feet long by about one and a half feet wide, like a surgical strike. Bingo! Under the lawn was some sandstone rocks, the foundations of some outbuildings of the long-ago Presidio...
The Presidio digs are also being used as a classroom to help other archaeologists learn newer cutting edge techniques. It is also useful for archaeology students at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Sonoma State University and San Francisco State, which all have archaeology departments.