Archaeologists Uncover History at Minute Man National Park

As our country begins six years of commemorating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, archaeologists are playing an ever-greater role in uncovering the secrets of history still buried in the hallowed ground of the war's battlefields. One example: Five musket balls Patriots fired at British soldiers at the North Bridge in Concord on April 19, 1775, were uncovered during an infrastructure project at Minute Man National Historic Park last year. 

Some of the actual ammunition fired by the minute men at the British in “the shot heard ’round the world” at Concord’s North Bridge was unearthed as National Park Service (NPS) archaeologists conducted compliance tasks to help prepare the park for the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) project. The Trust was involved in ensuring that GAOA funding directly benefits NPS historic sites and battlefields with important infrastructure improvements. For example, between 2022 and 2025, Minute Man will receive approximately $27 million to address maintenance back-log challenges for the park’s buildings, structures, landscape, trails, signage and monuments. 

Archaeologists determined that the five musket balls found during survey work preliminary to trail improvements near the North Bridge were fired by the Patriots because they were of the size usually used in the colonies and were found in an area where British soldiers gathered to stop the minute men from crossing the bridge. The musket balls also bore marks indicating they were fired as opposed to simply being dropped. 

Although the Concord discovery happened somewhat by accident during other necessary work, dedicated archaeological projects specifically devoted to building a better understanding of the battles of the Revolution are also producing exciting results. And they are perfectly suited to the mission of the American Battlefield Trust, since they are undertaken on the land itself. 

We preserve battlefields first and foremost to honor the American soldiers who fought and died on them. But archaeological projects are proving the immense value of preserving battlefield land for the untapped historical knowledge in still-buried ammunition and artifacts from battle. The locations and spatial patterns of munitions and other battle artifacts allow archaeologists and historians to determine more precisely where troops were positioned and where fighting occurred.

The benefits extend even further, since some of the archaeological work is being conducted by veterans working with the American Veterans Archaeological Recovery (AVAR).

In August 2024, an AVAR team, funded in part by a Trust grant to Friends of Minute Man National Park, uncovered a concentration of musket balls that revealed troop positions at the “Bloody Angle” at Elm Brook Hill. This site, about halfway between Lexington and Concord, was one of the places on Battle Road where minute men inflicted severe casualties on the retreating British troops during their march back to Boston.

At park sites, AVAR volunteers work in teams under the supervision of the National Park Service archaeologists to perform 100 percent metal detector coverage of target areas. All finds are input into GIS systems with exacting special data. “What we’re learning may not completely rewrite a battle,” said AVAR CEO Stephen Humphreys, “but it definitely adds nuance to our understanding of that battle. The information that can come from a single musket ball has grown by leaps and bounds.”

The Trust provided a grant to help fund a non-AVAR archaeology project in 2013 that revealed troop positions and other important historical information at Parker’s Revenge, another site close to Lexington on the Battle Road. It was here where minuteman Captain John Parker and the Lexington militia bloodied the retreating Redcoats as “revenge” for the 10 Patriots killed and eight wounded when the British attacked them on Lexington Green that morning. The Trust has saved an acre of the Parker’s Revenge site.