Billboards for the SugarHouse casino on Delaware Avenue herald a future with slot machines for 22 empty riverfront acres.

But it’s a fascination with the past that is drawing new attention – and controversy – to the project.

It’s a past that stretches back to 1,500 B.C., when native people assembled by the Delaware River to craft tools from stones.

And it’s a past that includes a small British fort from 1777, one of 10 built by occupying troops to keep out Gen. George Washington’s soldiers.

Pennsylvania’s top agency on historic matters has called for more extensive archaeological work at the property, on the Fishtown-Northern Liberties border. Initial work has uncovered 182 American Indian artifacts, including an arrowhead, a drill, and fragments of waste from making stone tools.