The history of New York is scattered across the city, in backyards, construction sites, street beds, and parks, from ancient pottery shards and colonial wine jugs to a child’s shoe in Seneca Village, the neighborhood that used to lay in today’s Central Park: everyday objects serving as windows onto forgotten pasts.

In Buried Beneath the City, Nan A. Rothschild, Amanda Sutphin, H. Arthur Bankoff, and Jessica Striebel MacLean tell the story of New York from the perspective of urban archaeology. Exploring the day-to-day world of an ever-evolving metropolis, they explore both the city’s “deep history” and more recent times, from the earliest traces of human life more than 10,000 years ago to Euro-American colonization and New York’s development into an global capital. Touring archeological finds (which still commonly occur), the book examines the details of everyday life unveiled by these artifacts, which have allowed historians to go beyond the written text, to what lay hidden beneath, for a larger, fuller documentary record. The result is a chronicle of a city that has perpetually torn up its foundations and rebuilt itself, lavishly illustrated with objects excavated from every corner of New York—both an introduction to the field, and the best new archaeological profile of Gotham’s rich past.

Diana Wall, author of the award-winning Unearthing Gotham, the Archaeology of New York City (2001), joins in conversation with Nan A. Rothschild and Amanda Sutphin.