Archaeologists find musket balls and fort linked to the Battle of Bunker Hill

BOSTON (AP) — Generations of Boston families played and picnicked on the grassy, sloping lawns of the Bunker Hill Monument.

Musket balls and other artifacts from one of the American Revolution’s most consequential battles were buried just below their feet the whole time.

Inspired by a centuries-old map, archaeologists have been digging in the park that sits on the site where American patriots hastily constructed an earthen fort to slow advancing British forces at what became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Ground-penetrating radar identified potential locations for the fort in Boston's Charlestown section. Soon after digging the first trench, the team led by Joe Bagley, the city of Boston's archaeologist, found definitive signs of a ditch constructed hours before the battle on June 17, 1775, one of the first of the American Revolution.

“The part that’s really crazy to me is that we get to stand in the same ditch,” said Bagley, standing over one of the two dig sites, where soil is removed about 4 inches (10 centimeters) at a time, put in buckets and filtered through screens. Any items found are bagged up and identified.

So far, the dig has uncovered musket balls and parts of a musket from the battle. They also found objects likely left behind by British troops who occupied the area after the battle — including tea cups, tobacco pipes, sleeve buttons and a wig curler. There were nearly 150 combatants who died there but no human remains have been found, though a forensic archaeologist is on site to identify any bones.

“Everything about the ditch is from 1775. You’ve got musket balls, gun flints. It’s what you would expect to see,” Bagley said. “It’s pretty powerful because these things are being dropped in the middle of the battle.”

The start of the American Revolution is often associated with the Battle of Lexington and Concord, skirmishes fought on April 19, 1775. But many scholars cite Bunker Hill and June 17 as the war's first significant battle.

Rebels intended to hold off a possible British attack by fortifying Bunker Hill, a 110-foot-high (34-meter-high) slope in Charlestown across the Charles River from British-occupied Boston. But for reasons still unclear, they instead took a position on a smaller and more vulnerable ridge known as Breed’s Hill, where most of the fighting took place.

The battle ended with the rebels in retreat, but not before the British had sustained more than 1,000 casualties. Bunker Hill is often portrayed as an American victory, since the British failed to win decisively and it served to galvanize the colonies against the British.

Today, a 221-foot (67-meter) white obelisk atop Breed's Hill memorializes the battle.

At the dig site, Joel Bohy, a battlefield archaeologist who specializes in identifying American Revolution weaponry, marveled at what had been pulled from the dirt. One volunteer held in her hand two jagged stones — the gray one was an English gun flint while a beige one was a French gun flint. When the trigger on the musket was pulled, flint struck the steel, producing sparks that ignited the gunpowder.

They also found eight marbled-sized musket balls from both sides in the battle. The markings and shape of some bullets showed they had been fired from a distance but didn't hit anyone. If they had, the balls would have been deformed.

“You can see the ramrod mark from when the soldier rammed it down. You can the little ring on the top where it was pushed down,” Bohy said, adding that “marks on the edge of the ball” show that it had been fired.

Using pick axes and shovels, more than 1,000 provincials and residents dug through the night to construct a ditch that was 3 feet (1 meter) deep and over 6 feet (2 meters) wide. They shoveled the soil in front of the ditch to make a 6-foot-high wall or parapet that reached 150 feet (46 meters) long on each of the four sides.

A map drawn by Henry Pelham two months after the battle showed a square redoubt on Breed's Hill. But it wasn't until the dig that anyone had confirmed the shape in the map was accurate. Previous digs in the 1990s had found items related to the battle and some evidence of the ditches.

“If you come to the site, we have the monument, we have a lot of maps on display, and the landscape is beautiful. But you can’t really see the fort, the fortifications that were built,” Bagley said. “Very little of what’s here visibly is from 1775. So, this trench is the reason why all of this is here.”

Beyond locating the fort, the dig also provides visitors a chance to hold “a piece of the battle in their hand,” Bohy said. “In a way, it makes the history more dimensional when you look at these objects from the battle itself.”

Several tourists from Colorado stopped by to watch the dig. One visitor, Greg Nockleby, who had spent a week in Boston learning about American history, said watching the archaeologists at work was a “wonderful surprise.”

“A live dig happening right now to uncover our nation’s history is amazing,” he said. “To see that there has been people here who have died for our freedom and our nation is very immersive.”

Joe Bagley, the City of Boston Archeologist, left, chats with visitor Owen MacDonald, of Los Angeles, who was visiting Boston with his father John, during an archaeological dig at the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Monday, June 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Joe Bagley, the City of Boston Archeologist, holds a portion of a bottle that was unearthed during an archaeological dig at the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Monday, June 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Joe Bagley, right, the City of Boston Archeologist, talks with with Sarah Kiley Schoff, a forensic anthropologist, during an archaeological dig at the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Monday, June 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Calla Ruff, an intern from Carleton College, sifts dirt removed from an archaeological dig at the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Monday, June 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Calla Ruff, an intern from Carleton College, holds a musket ball that was removed from an archaeological dig at the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Monday, June 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran will immediately take steps to reopen the Strait of Hormuz once a tentative deal with the U.S. to end the war is signed and will be allowed to sell its oil without restrictions, according to leaked copies of an interim agreement that officials say broadly matches the document.

The accord, due to be formally signed in a ceremony in Switzerland on Friday, lays out that the U.S. would secure at least $300 billion to rebuild Iran after the war and work to end all American and United Nations sanctions imposed on Tehran if a final agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program is reached.

The U.S. agreement to immediately allow Iran to sell its oil freely and the offer to eventually lift all sanctions represent major concessions that outstrip the terms of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from in his first term, declaring it the “worst deal ever.” This new accord likely will draw intense criticism in Washington — and appears to be a major setback for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched the war with Trump on Feb. 28.

The deal calls for an immediate end to all fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. That is one of the most delicate parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained it will continue to defend itself and to occupy vast swaths of Lebanon. Iran has said it must withdraw under the deal, although the leaked versions make no mention of withdrawal.

The two sides are to start 60 days of negotiations over a final deal that the Trump administration insists will prevent Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapon. The U.S. offers appear aimed at enticing Iran to strike an agreement.

But in the meantime, Iran appears to be getting benefits up front while making few concessions. Much of the agreement would restore the status quo before the war, including ending hostilities and reopening the strait, which is a crucial passage for the world's oil and natural gas and whose closure created a historic energy crisis.

Other concessions to Iran — some of which are extraordinary, including the money for rebuilding, the full lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets — appear dependent on the progress of further negotiations on Iran's nuclear program.

A person who was briefed on the memorandum of understanding after it was signed and another who viewed a copy beforehand said it largely matched the text of what was published by the Saudi-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya, which reported details of the deal Tuesday. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

Another two officials in the Mideast, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, also said the versions published by Al Arabiya and Bloomberg broadly matched the final agreement.

The White House and other American officials have not published the terms and did not immediately respond to questions. Iran also has not published an official version of the deal. Iran's semiofficial Tasnim news agency, close to its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, claimed Wednesday that Bloomberg's version had missing portions, without offering a full accounting.

The deal provides a major win for the global economy — the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded once passed before the war began. Since then, Iranian attacks on shipping and the threat to vessels effectively shut the strait.

The strait's closure drove up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including food, more expensive. Iran let out some vessels that paid tolls, something never done before in the strait, which sits in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman and long has been considered an international waterway. The U.S. later provided military support to get other tankers out, but traffic through the strait was nowhere near levels before the war.

The deal calls for the U.S. to lift a blockade imposed on Iranian ports and for the strait to return to its prewar traffic levels in 30 days, while acknowledging Iranian mines may still be in its waters that need to be destroyed.

While the deal says that the eventual lifting of sanctions on Iran will depend on future negotiations, the U.S. will immediately issue waivers on Iranian oil sales.

Granting oil waivers directly at the start of the 60-day talks strips the U.S. of a major point of leverage over Iran. In the years before the 2015 nuclear deal, Iranian oil faced international sanctions limiting their sales. Only at the conclusion of the overall deal in 2015 were those sanctions lifted.

The interim deal also opens the door to ending all sanctions Iran faces from the U.S. and at the U.N. — though it says the schedule for that will be worked out later. Still, that is far beyond the 2015 deal, which only lifted some sanctions in exchange for Iran drastically reducing its enrichment and stockpile of uranium.

The accord would also provide Iran with at least $300 billion to rebuild after an intense U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign — an extraordinary figure and another major benefit for Iran. U.S. Vice President JD Vance has said Gulf Arab nations would provide that amount as investments in Iran.

The interim deal sets a 60-day window, which can be extended, to negotiate over limiting Iran's nuclear program, which has been discussed at multiple rounds of talks during Trump's second administration without success. Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, though it has enough highly enriched uranium to build multiple atomic bombs, should it choose to do so, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In the interim deal, Iran reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons — a promise that it also made in the 2015 nuclear accord. Iranian diplomats have long pointed to statements from the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Iran wouldn’t build an atomic bomb. It remains unclear whether Khamenei’s son, Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, will follow that or not.

Trump has cited shifting goals for the war, including at times vowing it would end Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups in the region. He also suggested it could lead to toppling the Iranian government.

The interim deal falls short of all of these goals. The negotiations also exposed a rift between Netanyahu and Trump, the Israeli leader’s closest and most important ally, just as Netanyahu is seeking reelection. Netanyahu has come under heavy domestic criticism over the emerging deal but will be hard pressed to go against Trump, given Israel’s heavy reliance on the U.S. for diplomatic and military support.

Miller and Price reported from Washington, and Magdy from Cairo.

Rescue workers inspect a damaged ambulance belonging to Hezbollah's health unit that was hit in a previous Israeli airstrike in the southern village of Souaneh, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A man who returns to his village following the announcement of an initial ceasefire agreement between the United States and Iran, flashes victory sign as he stands on the rubble of his destroyed house in Nabatiyeh town, southern Lebanon, Tuesday, June 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

People walk along Tajrish square in northern Tehran, Monday, June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

A woman waves an Iranian flag during a pro-government campaign as a portrait of the slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, is displayed at right, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)