The Markham Museum has invited ASI Senior Archaeologist, David Robertson, to speak about urban archaeology for The Friends of Markham Musem Lecture Series. The event will take place at 7 pm on Thursday, February 18, 2016 in the Transportation Hall of the museum. Tickets are $30 each, including light appetizers and a cash bar.
The talk is entitled Shifting Shorelines and Buried Ships: The Archaeology of Toronto’s Industrial Harbour.
Between the 1850s and 1920s, Toronto’s harbour underwent a series of dramatic transformations that were brought about by large-scale land making projects and the construction of wharves, rail yards, factories, warehouses and associated infrastructure. With each new campaign of lake filling, many features became redundant and were simply buried as the shoreline moved further into open water. For the past 15 years the waterfront has been experiencing another transformation, as residential and office towers are rising on lands that largely have been under used or derelict since the 1950s, when many industries abandoned the area and the railway systems began to contract. Archaeological investigations carried out for these new developments have resulted in a range of finds concerning the historical use of the waterfront. This presentation will review the evolution of Toronto’s harbour as reflected by these archaeological projects, including the 2015 discovery of the remains of an early nineteenth-century schooner.
