The City Beneath the City: Archaeology of New Orleans
This tour includes information about archaeological sites already investigated in Orleans Parish. Some of these sites are now destroyed. Others are no longer accessible or have considerable untapped research potential. Most are on private property and not readily accessible to the public.
As there are few protections for archaeological resources in the city, the locations of some of these projects are only approximate. We ask that you do your part to help us preserve and protect the cultural heritage of the city. Please contact us or the Louisiana Division of Archaeology if you are aware of archaeological resources that are being destroyed.
Access: Online only
This tour was created with the participation of students from Dr. Ryan Gray's 'Archaeology of New Orleans' course at UNO and with support from students in the MSUS and Urban Studies Ph.D. programs at UNO. We are continuously updating and adding more sites and subtours/exhibits. You can also check out our lab's CatalogIt page at https://hub.catalogit.app/9619.
Please contact Dr. Gray with questions or suggestions at drgray1@uno.edu.
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Saint Louis Cathedral
The Saint Louis Cathedral is an iconic fixture of the New Orleans landscape. The present structure is at least the third building to serve as a Catholic church here since the French occupied the…
St. Anthony's Garden
Saint Anthony’s Garden is located just behind the landmark St. Louis Cathedral in the heart of the French Quarter. The space is easily identifiable by the large iron fence and the statue of Jesus…
The Old Ursuline Convent
In 2011, Shannon Lee Dawdy, an archaeologist and professor with the University of Chicago’s Department of Anthropology, conducted an excavation with students and volunteers at the site of the Ursuline…
The Rising Sun Hotel
Many visitors to New Orleans are familiar with the song “The House of the Rising Sun,” made popular by the English band The Animals in 1967. The song itself has roots far back in English folk…
810 Royal Street
On October 22, 2014, an over-200-year-old building at 810 Royal Street collapsed, presumably a victim of unrepaired termite and moisture damage. The collapse sparked conversations in New Orleans about…
Madame John’s Legacy
Madame John’s Legacy, located at 628-632 Dumaine Street, is often considered one of the best surviving examples of French Colonial architecture in the French Quarter, even though the existing…
St. Peter Street Cemetery
The St. Peter Street Cemetery served as the City of New Orleans’ primary burial ground through most of the Colonial era, from 1724 (and possibly earlier) until 1789, when it was officially replaced by…
Congo Square/Armstrong Park
During 1977 and 1978, the University of New Orleans conducted an archaeological project within what is now Armstrong Park. It focused on two areas, the Jazz Complex, a small area around what had been…
The Cabildo: The Archaeology of a Colonial-Era New Orleans Prison
The excavations at the Cabildo represented a rare opportunity to recover archaeological evidence of Colonial era governance, particularly in the realm of punishment. Modern conceptions of the prison…
The Hermann-Grima House
The Hermann-Grima house at 820 St. Louis Street is a Federal-style mansion built in 1831 for Samuel Hermann, a German-born immigrant who moved to New Orleans in 1810. The lot on which it stands has a…
626 Bourbon Street
In 2017, Dr. D. Ryan Gray led students and volunteers from University of New Orleans to excavate a portion of a private residence in the French Quarter located at 626 Bourbon Street. The team…
936 St. Peter Street: A Cottage Industry in the Quarter
In 2014, the University of New Orleans was invited to conduct archaeological testing at 936 St. Peter Street while the property was undergoing renovations. Below the surface layer, archaeologists…
St. Augustine/Tremé Plantation Site
During 1998 and 1999, the Greater New Orleans Archaeology Program, under the direction of Christopher Mathews, undertook testing and data recovery at the St. Augustine Site (16OR148), in the Tremé…
Development on Bayou Road: McDonogh (Bricolage Academy) Senior High School
John McDonogh Senior High School (now Bricolage Academy) suffered damages from Hurricane Katrina. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that funded the repairs also funded archaeological…
The Gex Pottery Site at the Lafitte Housing Project
In 2009-2010, archaeologists from ESI excavated the remains of a pottery from one of the blocks during the Lafitte Housing Complex renovation along what used to have been the Carondelet “Old Basin”…
Yellow Fever Hospital, Excavations at Thurgood Marshall School
In 2017, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funded the repairs to Thurgood Marshall School caused by the Hurricane Katrina levee breaches. The site had been a school for over one hundred…
Immigrant Households in Mid-City: Excavations from Albert Wicker Elementary School
Albert Wicker Elementary School had been located on Bienville Street in Mid-City 1971. Due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina, the school was damaged to the extent that the Orleans Parish School…
The Greater New Orleans Bridge Number 2
In 1983, archaeologists of Coastal Environments, Inc. conducted extensive testing and excavations for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development in the areas of the proposed east-bound…
Duncan Plaza
This past July, if you happened to be downtown near the Superdome and New Orleans City Hall, you might have seen something unexpected: in the public park known as Duncan Plaza, there were students…
Guste Homes: Excavating a Central City Neighborhood
What is archaeology, and why would you do archaeology at the former site of the Guste Homes?
Locust Grove Cemeteries No. 1 and 2 and Thomy Lafon School
Today the blocks bound by Magnolia, Seventh, Freret, and Sixth streets appear to be a vacant greenspace. However, for nearly a century, these two blocks housed the Thomy Lafon School complex.…
Charity Hospital Cemetery No. 1 and Hurricane Katrina Memorial
Charity Hospital was an iconic institution in the history of New Orleans, and at the time of its closure in 2015, one of the longest lasting public institutions in the United States. Both Charity…
Charity Hospital Cemetery No. 2
By some estimates, nearly 50,000 burials lie beneath Canal Boulevard, originally Charity Hospital Cemetery No. 2. Almost forgotten since Canal Boulevard's addition to the city's roadways in 1937, road…
Archaeological Excavations at Spanish Fort
At the junction of Lake Pontchartrain and Bayou St. John, swells of land, ruins of brick, and clusters of live oak trees mark the spot that today is called “Fort St. John.” Otherwise known as “Spanish…
Temple of the Innocent Blood
Today, nothing identifies the location in the Lower Ninth Ward where Mother Catherine Seals' “Temple of the Innocent Blood” once stood. This was true even before Hurricane Katrina devastated the area…
Big Oak and Little Oak Islands
Big Oak Island and Little Oak Island are camps and habitation sites associated with the people of the Tchefuncte culture of the Lower Mississippi Valley, dating from as early as 800 BCE to as late as…
McDonogh No. 5
In 2020, the Federal Emergency Management Agency provided funding to the Recovery School District (RSD) authorizing the renovation of Martin Berhman Elementary School under the Robert T. Stafford…Tour curated by: University of New Orleans, Department of Anthropology and Sociology