Musket Balls and Wig Curlers Unearthed at Bunker Hill's Revolutionary Fort

A Battle Beneath Boston's Backyard

For generations, Boston families played and picnicked on the grassy, sloping lawns of the Bunker Hill Monument — and musket balls from one of the American Revolution's most consequential battles were buried just below their feet the whole time. That changed on June 17, the 251st anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, when a two-week archaeological dig wrapped up at the site, delivering a remarkable haul of artifacts and a long-awaited confirmation of the fort that made the battle possible.

The excavation focused on locating and learning more about the earthen fortification known as the redoubt, which colonial soldiers hastily hand-constructed overnight leading up to the battle on June 17, 1775. "Many maps of the redoubt have been drawn, but they all disagree with each other. We're really hoping to lock in exactly where it was located," said Joe Bagley, the City of Boston's archaeologist. The dig did exactly that — and then some.

What the Dirt Revealed

The dig uncovered musket balls and parts of a musket from the battle, as well as objects likely left behind by British troops who occupied the area afterward — including tea cups, tobacco pipes, sleeve buttons, and a wig curler. One volunteer held two jagged stones — a gray English gun flint and a beige French gun flint — both of which, when a musket trigger was pulled, would have struck steel to produce the sparks that ignited gunpowder.

Archaeologists also found eight marble-sized musket balls from both sides of the battle. The markings and shape of some bullets showed they had been fired from a distance but hadn't hit anyone — if they had, the balls would have been deformed. Bagley described the emotional weight of the finds: "Everything about the ditch is from 1775. You've got musket balls, gun flints. It's what you would expect to see. It's pretty powerful because these things are being dropped in the middle of the battle."

A map drawn by Henry Pelham two months after the battle showed a square redoubt on Breed's Hill — but it wasn't until this dig that anyone had confirmed the shape in the map was accurate. There were nearly 150 combatants who died at the site, but no human remains were found, though a forensic archaeologist was on site throughout the dig to identify any bones.

Veterans Digging Into History

The crew consisted of the City of Boston archaeology program alongside military veterans from the organization American Veterans Archaeological Recovery, a group started to help veterans transition into civilian life and find careers in archaeology, with much of their work focused on historic battlegrounds and national parks. The partnership gave the project a poignant dimension — soldiers of today excavating the ground where soldiers of 1775 fought and died.

Stephen Humphreys, CEO of AVAR, said: "I think as a veteran, you do draw a family connection to the individuals who fought and in a lot of cases died on sites like this. What we really try to do with the archaeology is make it less about that huge picture and more about those individual stories that archaeology can really tell."

More Than a Battle Site

While the start of the American Revolution is often associated with the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, many scholars cite Bunker Hill and June 17 as the war's first significant battle. The redoubt at the center of this dig was central to that fight — more than 1,000 colonists dug a 3-foot-deep, 6-foot-wide trench protected by a 6-foot-high wall overnight, a structure that proved critical to slowing the British advance even as the Americans ultimately retreated.

The Bunker Hill dig is part of a broader national effort to document and preserve Revolutionary-era landscapes ahead of the United States Semiquincentennial — the 250th anniversary of American independence — with researchers now set to subject recovered artifacts to laboratory analysis to confirm their dating and origin. As one volunteer put it: "It's sacred ground, and it's such wonderful history. To be part of the uncovering of the redoubt and seeing that revealed for the first time in 251 years has been extraordinary." The lab results, when they arrive, may tell us even more about what happened on that hill on a June morning in 1775.