Projects

he Cultural Resource Group has taken the initiative in improving the availability of our reports to the public. Brief project reports linked below are available online in html format. PDF files of the complete reports are available for a handful of recent projects as well. 

• Hydroelectric Generating Facilities in Vermont. Vermont's waterways have been utilized for mechanical power since the earliest settlement by people of European descent. In this continuum, hydroelectric developments can be viewed as possibly the last in a series of uses of hydraulic systems on Vermont's rivers and streams. The Louis Berger Group, Inc. prepared a Multiple Property Documentation Form for hydroelectric power generating facilities in the State of Vermont.
• Big Inch and Little Big Inch Pipelines. The Big Inch and Little Big Inch pipelines were constructed in 1942-1943 for the United States government by War Emergency Pipelines, Inc. (WEP). Berger's researchers inventoried existing components and produced a public history of the "most amazing Government-industry cooperation ever achieved."
• The Secaucus Potter's Field Cemetery, New Jersey. Berger's investigations of an unmarked 20th century potter's field cemetery in advance of new construction for the New Jersey Turnpike has become one of the largest disinterment projects ever attempted. 
• Urban Archaeology in the City of Detroit, Michigan. Excavations in advance of highway construction revealed much about Detroit's urban residential neighborhoods between 1835 and 1855. 
• 17th Century Glebe Farm, Virginia. Historical, architectural, and archaelogical investigations of a farmstead tract furnished to a Church of England minister. 
• Confederate Winter Camp, Manassas Battlefield Park, Virginia. Archaeological investigations into huts used by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.
• Henryton Sanatorium, Maryland. Historic and architectural resources survey of an early 20th century tuberculosis hospital.
• George Town, Virginia. Archaeological work at a small roadside hamlet first occupied in the late 1700s.
• Hanging Rock Battlefield. Investigations into a Civil War battlefield site lead to the creation of a park and biking trail.
• Drawyer Creek South. Archaeological investigations as this transient camp site occupied beginning 2000 BC in Delaware.
• The Amana Colonies Agricultural Buildings. Historic architectural studies of the most successful of American Utopian communities.
• The Brook Run Site. Excavations sponsored by the Virginia Department of Transportation at this prehistoric jasper mine in Culpeper County provide evidence for what may be among the earliest Paleo-Indian sites in the Middle Atlantic region.
• 19th Century Cannon at Castle Clinton Berger conservators working with the Picatinny Arsenal of New Jersey revealed a pre-Civil War cannon from Castle Clinton in Manhattan.
• Digging for Old Delaware. Archaeologists working with the Delaware Department of Transportation provide information about ordinary American citizens during the early colonial period.
• The Wever Terrace Sites. Three Oneota village sites (occupied about 1300 AD) in southeast Iowa were excavated in advance of an Iowa Department of Transportation road widening project, producing one of the largest and most complete collections of prehistoric Indian pottery ever excavated in the State of Iowa.
• Abbott Farm National Landmark. Archaeological investigations were undertaken in the 1980s at the Charles Conrad Abbott farm near Trenton, New Jersey for the Federal Highway Administration and New Jersey Department of Transportation. Abbott was an early pioneer in archaeology, and excavator of the Trenton Gravels site. New excavations revealed a wide variety of site types within the limits of his farmstead, now a National Landmark Site.
• Buried Beneath Philadelphia. In advance of planned construction of a Metropolitan Detention Center at North 7th and Arch streets in Philadelphia, a large urban archaeology project was conducted in 1995-96 by the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons. The archaeological excavations focused on uncovering foundations and associated items of historic interest within a series of early lots that fronted both streets, where Philadelphians of the 17th through 20th century resided.
• Trunk Highway 55, Hennepin County, Minnesota. During the spring of 1999, archaeological investigations were conducted to address Native American concerns about the potential for human burials within the proposed corridor of Trunk Highway 55, near Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota identified four bur oak trees situated on the project centerline as a sacred area which might mark the location of ancestral graves.
• Manfield Bridge Site. Data recovery investigations ahead of PennDOT improvements Routes 11/15 was conducted at this Late Archaic to Late Woodland period occupation in Tioga County, Pennsylvania.