Date of Award
8-2005
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Anthropology
First Advisor
Dr. Frederick Smith
Second Advisor
Dr. Pamela Stone
Third Advisor
Dr. Catherine Julien
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Open Access
Abstract
In 1996 and 1999 two previously unknown graveyards were discovered in separate sections of Bridgetown, Barbados. Emergency excavations of the sites recovered the skeletal material of at least thirty-two (MNI=32) individuals as well as a number of grave goods. While the artifacts were from the historical period there was continuing speculation as to the ancestry of the individuals interred within these graveyards. During the summer of 2004 the first preliminary osteological analysis of the skeletal material was conducted to identify the biological characteristics, including the ancestral affiliation, of these individuals. The analysis determined that the individuals interred at these sites were of African ancestry and were most likely part of Bridgetown's enslaved population. While archaeologists have previously investigated the lives of enslaved peoples in Barbados using skeletal evidence from Newton Plantation, a rural sugar estate in the parish of Christ Church, the materials from the Bridgetown are the first of their kind and are beginning to shed new light on urban slave life.
Recommended Citation
Crain, Christopher, "A Bioarchaeological Investigation of Two Unmarked Graveyards in Bridgetown, Barbados" (2005). Masters Theses. 3916.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/3916