Archaeologists investigate Mark Twain's Virginia City
A team of archaeologists is currently continuing excavations that they hope will shed light on life in Virginia City during the time when Mark Twain called the place home.
A summer field school operated by the Anthropology Department of the University of Nevada, Reno has begun excavating the original site of Thomas Maguire's Opera House on D Street. A second excavation is also under way in an area known as the Barbary Coast, a place of vice and crime during the 1860s and 1870s.
Both sites were tested last summer, and results indicated there were sufficient deposits to return this summer. The project is made possible almost entirely through volunteer and student labor although a National Park Service grant and support from the Comstock Historic District Commission allows a few professional archaeologists to manage the project.
The second excavation will investigate a South C Street neighborhood that earned the name “Barbary Coast” because it was a dangerous place offering what respectable residents regarded as sinful activities.
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A summer field school operated by the Anthropology Department of the University of Nevada, Reno has begun excavating the original site of Thomas Maguire's Opera House on D Street. A second excavation is also under way in an area known as the Barbary Coast, a place of vice and crime during the 1860s and 1870s.
Both sites were tested last summer, and results indicated there were sufficient deposits to return this summer. The project is made possible almost entirely through volunteer and student labor although a National Park Service grant and support from the Comstock Historic District Commission allows a few professional archaeologists to manage the project.
The second excavation will investigate a South C Street neighborhood that earned the name “Barbary Coast” because it was a dangerous place offering what respectable residents regarded as sinful activities.