Greetings,

My article identifying a possible British source of the coffin handles
excavated at the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan has just been
published in the African Diaspora Archaeology Network Newsletter.

In an attempt at some context, other early imported British coffin handles
found at the African-American Tenth Street Cemetery in Philadelphia are
also presented. Left with more questions than answers, I present several
possible avenues of research about the African/African American use of
coffin hardware in early burials (i.e. pre-dating, in these cases by
decades, the development of the American coffin hardware industry).

A link to the article is here:
http://www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/news0611/news0611.html#2

I would be very interested to hear of other examples of the use of coffin
hardware in North America pre-dating ca. 1850, both in European and
African/African American contexts.

Apologies for cross-posts.

Regards,
Megan Springate, MA, RPA