OK, its a slow night and I feel like telling my story of cremated remains
and an archaeology project ...

Back in 1991 and 1992 I was a field director for David Starbuck at Rogers
Island in the middle of the Hudson River at Fort Edward, NY (base camp of
Robert Rogers, F & I War, 1760s and all that).  The first season we chose a
level spot near a monument and flag poles that _________, the previous
owner of the property, had put up, and we began our digging (he had claimed
to have found a "fireplace" when setting the monument).  As the first days
of the dig progressed we were finding all sorts of diagnostic artifacts,
musket balls, pipe stems, wine bottle fragments, coins, etc.  We were also
finding the usual faunal remains associated with a soldier's camp.  To be
sure that some of these bones were indeed bones and not sandstone
concretions, I was in the habit of touching them to my moist lip and if
they stuck they were sent to the lab as bone (or pipe) (none of my crew
were so crazy as to do such a disgusting thing).

One particular day, as our excavations progressed northward and away from
the monument, we had found a number of small white bone fragments and the
crew had begin to notice that they were right on the surface.
Investigations of the grass found that these fragments were scattered in
increasing quantity along the surface of the ground.  Concerned that we
might have some sort of contamination from a pig roast we collected what we
could find.  Lo and behold I picked up a piece that was about the size of a
half dollar that was unmistakebly a fragment of a human cranium!

Work stopped, and I walked over to David who was kabitzing nearby and said
to him "David, what did they do with ______ when he died?"  His reply (as
if I didn't already know) was "They cremated him.  Why?" at which point I
handed him the cranium fragment.

A search of the general area dicovered scores more fragments (obviuously
not ground up as a decent mortician would do), a rusty coffee can with more
remains, and a set of spun-out tire tracks which matched the dispersal
pattern and which were obviously made in haste as the "strewers" did their
dirty work in the middle of the night.  (The Island was owned by others and
old _______'s friends had been told to keep out).

The ironic thing about the whole situation was that old ______, who ravaged
the site for years and never would have stepped foot into a real
archaeology lab had become a pile of artifacts himself!  We did retrieve
and cull all the fragments we had sent to the lab.  We respectfully
scattered them on a nearby part of the Island which we had no intention of
digging (for old _____ had gouged away any features long ago) and we laid
the dusty old bone fragments to rest ... hopefully for good.

I stopped testing faunal remains on my lips.

        Dan W.



>At 01:02 PM 9/4/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Cremated remains are harder to record as an archaeological site than a pile
>of flakes. Back about 25 years ago, I surveyed a 1920s adobe church built on
>the prehistoric village of Cupa in San Diego County. Artifacts along the
>ridge included 1840s-1860s English transfer-print sherds, aqua glass, and
>lots of "toasty" bone fragments. Having been taught physical anthropology by
>the late Spencer Rogers,, I had a healthy dose of forensic study of cremated
>human remains and instantly recognized the scatter as cremated human material
>(a zygomatic here, a patella there..). The bone material spread a greater
>distance beyond the adobe historic scatter, but when I submitted papers to
>record the site, the Information Center technician refused to accept the bone
>material as evidence and the site narrowed down to the historic artifact
>boundary. Since the entire property was under my control as staff
>archaeologist for the County of San Diego at that time, I placed a dedicated
>open space easement that protected the bones even though the cretin at the
>Information Center refused to record the total extent of the site. Funny how
>people are about bones.
>
>Ron May
>Legacy 106, Inc.
>