St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans recently had its first archaelogical dig - and an interesting array of artifacts were unearthed (including a silver crucifix and traces of previously unknown buildings dating back to 1718). Shannon Lee Dawdy, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, is the lead archaelogist of the project.
Dawdy and eight students spent a month excavating St. Anthony's Garden, a fenced area behind the cathedral. After Hurricane Katrina, the cathedral received a Getty Foundation grant to restore the garden and dig into its history. Other finds have included clay pipes, children's marbles, and remains of china dolls. The most significant find is the foundation of a hut where a mixture of French artifacts from the early 1700s and fragments of Native American pottery were found.
NOLA.com has a video available online from the dig.