This presentation revisits the six sites and communities featured in Detroit Remains seven years after the book’s writing was completed. Detroit Remains: Archaeology and Community Histories of Six Legendary Places was the first book published to feature historical, contemporary, and community-based archaeology in the city (Univ. Alabama Press, 2022). The James Deetz Award-winning book’s case studies were set within the context of particular moments in the city’s politics, heritage management, and stakeholder relationships. They also positioned several archaeological projects to initiate longer-term policy change, historic preservation efforts, funding, and community empowerment. As is the case in dynamic, revitalizing cities, unpredictable transformations have affected the outcomes and impacts of the archaeological projects featured in Detroit Remains. These changes and lessons learned from the longer-term outcomes will be considered.

The Renaissance Center has remained an iconic component of Detroit's skyline for over 50 years. Yet, beneath its towering presence lies the fascinating story of a diverse early- to mid-nineteenth-century riverfront community. Pioneering Wayne State archaeologists, often working directly in front of bulldozers, excavated a nine-city block area during the Center's 1973-1974 construction. The project yielded over 19,000 artifacts and presents a compelling narrative of the diverse lives intertwined within this dynamic neighborhood, demonstrating how the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 transformed Detroit into a burgeoning urban and industrial hub. This paper combines the findings from that initial salvage archaeology with more recent collection-based research conducted by the author and others as part of the Unearthing Detroit Project (established in 2013). This research exemplifies the ongoing commitment to urban archaeology, collections-based research, and the collaborative spirit that characterizes archaeological projects in and around Detroit.

In August 2021, community volunteers affiliated with the Michigan Underground Railroad Exploratory Collective (MUREC) initiated a collaboration with the University of Michigan’s Detroit River Story Lab and the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology (UMMAA). MUREC had identified modern Campau Park in east Detroit as the likely location of Camp Ward--where African American recruits trained during the Civil War--and sought assistance in confirming its location through archaeology. Campau Park is also the location of the former Black Bottom neighborhood, an epicenter of cultural life for Detroit’s African-American residents until it was torn down in a late 20th-century “urban renewal” project. In August 2023, the University of Michigan funded a GPR survey across Campau Park to detect and map buried cultural features associated with Camp Ward or Black Bottom. Although inconclusive with respect to Camp Ward, the survey demonstrates that the footprint of Black Bottom remains well-preseved beneath the modern park.

Chronicle Heritage conducted two seasons of archaeological investigation in North Corktown, Detroit in advance of the proposed Preserve on Ash Housing and Urban Development (HUD) project. Mechanical trench excavation allowed for the recovery of artifacts in association with structural features. Commonwealth recorded 553 archaeological features, including 96 foundations, 158 buried abandoned utility pipes, 126 structural footings, 32 basement pits, artifact concentrations, and other feature types; recovered 3,441 artifacts; and identified 41 new archaeological sites. Artifacts recovered from these sites, the vast majority of which were mixed in the highly disturbed surface horizons, reflect the entire period from the late nineteenth century to today. This paper explores how children and domestic traditions is represented by the recovered cultural material

Daily life for Hamtramck, Michigan residents during the 19th and early 20th centuries centered on establishments such as the Gass Saloon and boardinghouses. Records from the 1920s confirm that Catherine Hoppes owned the building from which a saloon and boarding house operated from 1890 to 1927. Despite societal and legal barriers, the early 1900s saw the emergence of female entrepreneurs like Catherine, particularly in cities undergoing industrialization and urbanization, where the demand for services like food, drink, and affordable lodging was ever-growing. A 2022 excavation at the Gass Saloon yielded 181 bottles and other artifacts, including Prohibition-era items and personal belongings, revealing a nuanced picture of women’s agency in shaping both the public and domestic spheres. This paper examines how gender, urban space, and economic power intersected in early 20th-century Hamtramck, focusing on a woman-owned boardinghouse and saloon as critical nodes in the urban landscape.

The archaeological material culture from a reported brothel can serve as an entry point for reconstructing the broader social and spatial landscape of a red-light district in Detroit. Artifacts from nearby assemblages, along with archival documents, expand beyond one structure within the landscape and demonstrate a network of industries supplying men looking for entertainment in a bustling city in the late 19th and early 20th century. Sex workers’ earnings then benefit local businesses and demonstrate informal networks. These elements embody women's labor, social mobility strategies, and hierarchies erased from historical narratives, revealed within three streets defining sex workers’ contributions to the economy. The women who lived, were arrested, incarcerated, and shunned by a society for trying to make ends meet, provide evidence of their lived experience—of resistance to spatial containment, blurring boundaries between respectability and social norms, and the vibrant, complex worlds they built in marginal urban spaces.

Detroit boasts industrial heritage of global significance. This paper overviews the city's industrial heritage by exploring the history of industrial archaeology in Michigan. Archaeologists have taken varied approaches to the "industrial part" of the recent and contemporary past, perspectives and practices shaped by the instituions, organizations, and personalities drawn to the grit, hustle, conflict, struggle, experiment, success, and failure of the past.

Thanks to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, the most recent period of capitalist demolition and redevelopment in Detroit has given archaeologists the opportunity to study neighborhoods that have been continuously re-made across the course of the so-called “long 20^th century” (ca. 1870-2012). Since 2012, The Mannik & Smith Group has conducted multiple phases of investigation at the former site of the Frederick Douglass Homes (a federal public housing project) and the adjacent Brewster Wheeler Recreation Center. These areas were once part of Paradise Valley, originally a Jewish immigrant neighborhood that transitioned to an African-American neighborhood before it was demolished to make way for public housing projects and I-75. Combining archaeological analyses of everyday life in Paradise Valley and historical analysis of capitalist cycles of destruction and renewal illuminates the ways in which race and space have been continuously manipulated in the creation (and re-creation) of modern Detroit.

Historical markers are important plaques commemorating historical events, places, and people. These markers may be related to times of conflict or times of celebration. Specifically, state historical markers in Detroit, Michigan and Memphis, Tennessee are useful for knowing important figures or events within the area. However, there are markers within these cities that may have some historical gaps. Archaeology can help fill in gaps in the histories behind the sites. This project will compare a collection of historical markers in Metro Detroit and Memphis. Using various methods, I seek to determine the level of potential archaeology within the selected locations. This project will contribute to furthering archaeological engagement with residents of Detroit and Memphis and examine the presence and absence of remembrance of African American history within each city.

In 2025, students from Wayne State University’s Historical Archaeology course conducted a comprehensive cultural study of Detroit’s historic neighborhoods, including Brush Park, Paradise Valley, Black Bottom, Cass Corridor, and District Detroit. Commissioned by Olympia Development of Michigan, the Past Forward Project sought to document overlooked histories and evaluate existing historical markers for revision and improvement.

The project emphasized creating a more dynamic approach to public history by proposing digital enhancements, community-driven narratives, and new markers that better represent Detroit’s racial, cultural, and geographic diversity. An urban walking trail was also envisioned to connect these stories and encourage deeper public engagement with the city’s layered past.

Through this work, Past Forward worked to reframe historical markers as active tools for education and community participation. This case study demonstrates how archaeologists can collaborate with local communities to democratize historical storytelling and reshape how urban histories are remembered and shared.