Digging for the past while forgetting it

From the Daily News:

RESEARCHERS are hoping the excavation of a municipal parking lot in Flushing will reveal vital clues about 17th-century life - a rarely discussed effect of the controversial Flushing Commons development.

Archeological work slated for the Union St. lot could turn up artifacts from farms, a school and other sites that occupied the area over the last three and a half centuries, preservationists said.

...historians are salivating over the prospects of unearthing the past - during testing required by the city Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The commission ordered tests because of the project's proximity to the Macedonia AME Church, which began in 1811 and is considered the third-oldest religious organization in Flushing.

Eichenbaum figured Dutch settlers in the 1600s also might have crossed the plot, located between early downtown and where they docked boats in Flushing Bay.

Starting in the early 1800s, the site housed a school for the poor run by the Flushing Female Association. Archivists crave the school's long-lost student records.

"It's a longshot, but I'm hoping it will be recovered," said Jim Driscoll, the historical society's longtime president.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission instructed the site's developers, TDC Construction and the Rockefeller Group, to hire an archeological expert as part of any underground work.

Michael Meyer, the president of TDC Development, said the developers will likely pick a consultant early next year.

"We don't expect, frankly, there will be much of anything," he said. "But you never know. We may be surprised."

Others held out hope.

"Excavation could fill in gaps in the documented history we have in our collection," said Marisa Berman, executive director of the historical society. "It would ultimately give historians a better understanding of that area."

How could all of these historians and preservationists fail to mention the artifacts most likely to be discovered there and the population they belonged to? HELLOOOO?