Why Scientists Are Hoping To Find Paul Revere’s Poop

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Archaeologists hope that their findings will shed more light on the diet and habits of Paul Revere and the people of his time.

Thanks to a recent archaeology dig, we may soon find out what types of food Paul Revere was eating before his famous ride.

CBS News reports that this Monday, workers were shocked when they accidentally discovered the possible remains of a colonial outhouse at the Minuteman’s house.

The workers discovered a four-by-six-foot brick rectangle that archaeologists believe would have lined the pit of the outhouse.

The next day, excavation began on the outhouse site.

Archeological dig going on outside Paul Revere’s House in the North End. What will they find? pic.twitter.com/1rBgv7hAL5

— Doug Cope (@dcopewbz) September 26, 2017

While a shack people went to the bathroom in may seem unimportant in the scale of history, researchers are ecstatic about the find.

“We love finding privies,” said Joe Bagley, a City archaeologist working on the dig. “We think we have one. The only way to find out is to dig down into it and see if it has that nightsoil–that kind of smelly, dark soils which are now composted and not that bad, but they might have a stench still, a little bit.”

Bagley and other archaeologists hope that what they find in this outhouse will shed light on the way Paul Revere, and people of his time lived.

Already, discoveries are being made, with archaeologists finding a fragment of a German-made beer stein from the 1700s as well as pieces of coal.

Although these may seem like odd items to find in what is essentially a toilet, Bagley explains that at the time, with an outhouse, “you’d fill it up with you-know-what, and then also your household waste, because everyone threw their trash out into that.”

He went on to say, “We’re hoping to find the individuals’ waste themselves, which, we can get seeds from what they were eating, we can find parasites, find out what their health was, but then everything else that they threw out from their house.”

If they are able to find this type of physical evidence from Paul Revere’s time, we’ll know more about the legendary American and the time of our country’s foundation.

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Next, read about how construction workers found a huge colonial-era burial ground underneath Philadelphia parking lot. Then, learn how basically everything you thought you knew about Pocahontas is wrong.