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Date: | Thu, 30 Aug 2001 22:14:42 +0000 |
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Hello all:)
Back in the mid 90s, I directed the archaeological
removal and relocation of an African-American skeletal
population of 557 individuals from a benevolent/mutual
aid society cemetery actively used from 1870 to around
1950 (my thesis topic currently in its final
thrashes:). Adjacent to the cemetery under a two
hundred year-old oak, we hit a large pile of what I
first thought to be domestic debris because of its
proximity to the remains of a caretakers house. Careful
examination proved that the debris was dominated by
ceramic vessels, hair tonic bottles, pomade and cold
cream jars, medicine jars and bottles, syringes, insulin
bottles, and a wide variety of food jars and bottles. I
interpreted the deposit as an area the caretaker used to
discard surface offerings during cemetery clean-ups as
the frequency of most of the products represented in the
deposit were too extreme for any single person or family
to use in a lifetime. This deposit measured
approximately twenty meters in diameter and up to one
meter in thickness. A similar feature was observed on
the opposite side of the cemetery.
Dan Allen
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