In the shadow of the Roundhouse, a porcelain hippo once perched on a shelf, kids scribbled their letters on a slate blackboard and women placed flowers in San Ildefonso pottery jars.
Archaeologists and volunteers have been excavating what was once a lower-middle class neighborhood at the corner of Galisteo Street and Manhattan Avenue since March 3. Slated for the city's newest parking garage, it was once home to a barbershop, a supermarket and a flooring store from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. Workers have dug and swept out privies, foundations and refuse pits to expose bottles, tools and even dirt-caked car wheels in the once largely Hispanic neighborhood. Archaeologists have unearthed some 40,000 artifacts during the 2 1/2-week dig, including a brass spur dating to the 1890s.
City officials demolished the adobe and frame buildings to make room for a parking lot in the 1960s.
The European hippopotamus in question dates to the late '20s or the early '30s and confirms the residents weren't as severely impacted by the Depression as the state's rural population.
"I've never seen anything like that," said Matthew Barbour, site supervisor from the Office of Archaeological Studies. The quantity and quality of ceramics, animal bones and car parts show an economically thriving neighborhood, he added.
"Once you get into the 20th century, there's a lot of refuse," Barbour continued. "Because we're dealing with the Prohibition era, sometimes we don't find any alcohol."
They did find abundant milk bottles, at least one from Santa Fe's old Slade's Dairy. Beer bottles thrived despite the 18th Amendment; one volunteer found a pale green, quart-sized Falstaff bottle from St. Louis.
The area originally belonged to the Alarid family, who may have lived here as early as the 1880s, Barbour said. By the early 20th century, Ricardo Alarid was operating his own business there.
"We have fragments of his barbershop that was built in 1838," Barbour explained.
Exposed brick and concrete foundations dating as far back as 1890 rise in a grid across the dusty ground. Small irrigation channels flowing from the acequia near Paseo de Peralta date to the Spanish colonial period.
Barbour and his team of six employees and six volunteers will be working until about the end of May.
"We're collecting pollen samples to see what they were growing in the field," he explained. "Aside from corn and wheat, what were they growing?"
Diggers exposed the oval cesspit and storeroom once belonging to Pete's Supermarket. Glazed fire brick lined the pit walls like scales. Barbour leafed through old city directories dating to 1828 to trace the buildings, businesses and their owners. The Romeros bought the property when the Alarids left.
Friend of Archaeology volunteer Colette Pogue shook out the dirt from a framed screen to expose a jawbreaker-sized blue marble and a sharp black shard from a 78 LP. The treasures came from a 1930s outhouse.
"We used to sail them in the air when (the manufacturers) were done with them," she said of the iPod's vinyl predecessor, her arm arcing in a Frisbee move.
Mud-caked hubcaps revealed rotting wooden spokes in place of chrome.
"They did have carports out here," Barbour said. "They were not that bad off."
China doll legs and heads confirm the existence of children, an iron shovel blade and numerous pickaxes emphasize the labor involved in surviving the era. A small glass perfume bottle and a mother-of-pearl button express the longing for a touch of elegance.
After workers brush them and sort them into labeled paper bags, archaeologists will wash, analyze and curate the artifacts.
When the archaeological work is completed, the public will get their turn, Barbour said.
Michael Trujillo of the Legislative Council Service wants to display them in the Roundhouse or in the new parking garage.
