The Delaware River Valley runs through the Mid-Atlantic states of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Maryland, with its center in Philadelphia. Its diverse population includes a wide variety of European Americans, Native Americans, and enslaved African Americans that made it one of the cultural centers of America before the Civil War. In this volume the editors have assembled 15 essays on historical archaeology that span this 250-year period.
Indeed, it is a rich history that includes the Quakers in Philadelphia and the city’s most illustrious citizen, Benjamin Franklin. An 18th-century shipwreck in Delaware Bay illustrates maritime archaeology and sheds new light on the colonial trading network. This collection of archaeological essays tells the stories of an emerging American nation through its formative years. It’s hard to imagine a more interesting subject, and the authors tell it quite well. —Mark Michel
