Hidden for 250 Years, Seeds of War Emerge in Boston

Generations of Boston families played and picnicked on the grassy, sloping lawns of the Bunker Hill Monument. Musket balls and other artifacts from one of the American Revolution's most consequential battles were buried just below their feet the whole time. Inspired by a centuries-old map and indications from ground-penetrating radar, archaeologists have been digging in the park that sits on the site where American patriots hastily constructed an earthen fort to slow advancing British forces at what became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill, the AP reports. Soon after digging the first trench, the team led by Boston city archaeologist Joe Bagley found definitive signs of a ditch constructed hours before the battle on June 17, 1775, one of the first of the American Revolution.

"The part that's really crazy to me is that we get to stand in the same ditch," said Bagley, standing over one of the two dig sites in Boston's Charlestown neighborhood, where soil is removed about 4 inches at a time, put in buckets and filtered through screens. So far, the dig has uncovered musket balls, parts of a musket from the battle, and objects 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, though a forensic archaeologist is on site to identify any bones.

The start of the American Revolution is often associated with the Battle of Lexington and Concord, skirmishes fought on April 19, 1775. But many scholars cite Bunker Hill as the war's first significant battle. Rebels intended to hold off a possible British attack by fortifying Bunker Hill, a 110-foot-high slope in Charlestown across the Charles River from British-occupied Boston. But for reasons still unclear, they instead took a position on a smaller and more vulnerable ridge known as Breed's Hill, where most of the fighting took place. The battle, often portrayed as an American victory, ended with the rebels in retreat, but not before the British had sustained more than 1,000 casualties. Now, visitors to the site can hold "a piece of the battle in their hand," says archaeologist Joel Bohy.