Negroes Burying Ground (Site Name Keyword)
1-17 (17 Records)
A collection of Park Service reports and supporting documents from archaeological work done at the African Burial Ground National Monument in lower Manhattan, New York, New York.
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Archaeological Site Plan map (Figure 1.7) (2006)
This illustration is a large map of the project area (Figure 1.7). It displays the excavated area and feature outlines.
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 1. Introduction (2006)
This report is one of three disciplinary reports on the African Burial Ground Project. One report focuses on the skeletal biological analysis of the remains recovered from the site (Blakey and Rankin Hill 2004). A second report focuses on the documentary history, from a Diasporic perspective, of Africans who lived and died in early New York (Medford 2004). The present report, consisting of four volumes, presents the archaeological research on the African Burial Ground. General background on the...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 12. Buttons and Fasteners (2006)
This chapter discusses the evidence for clothing supplied by the buttons, cuff links, and aglets associated with the deceased. It begins with an overview of the burials from which these items were recovered. It then focuses on what black New Yorkers wore during the 18th century, and how clothing and buttons were acquired. The assemblage is then described. Information is provided about recovery, condition and treatment, chain of custody, and findings about manufacture, origin, and age. A synopsis...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 14. Coins, Shells, Pipes, and Other Items (2006)
This chapter describes an array of items—coins, shells, pipes, nails and tacks, crystals, unique objects, botanical remains—that do not fit neatly into artifact assemblages organized around function and use, or material, manufacture, and age. The first part of the chapter provides a profile of the burials with these items. The items are described in detail in 14.B. Information is provided about recovery, condition and treatment, chain of custody, methods of analysis, and where relevant,...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 15. Summary and Conclusions (2006)
The African Burial Ground, located in lower Manhattan, New York City and County, proved to be the largest excavated African cemetery from colonial America, and contained the largest sample of human skeletal remains ever studied from any African Diaspora cemetery, anywhere. The total number of graves identified in the excavated portion of the cemetery was 424, and the total number of individuals for whom skeletal remains could be inventoried numbered 419.
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 2. Documentary Evidence on the Origin and Use of the African Burial Ground (2006)
This chapter presents an overview of the African Burial Ground from two complementary points of view. Part one examines documentary evidence about the origin of the cemetery and the development of its immediate surrounds. It covers the mid 1600s to 1795, and includes a chronology of property transactions, petitions, surveys, ordinances, and key events directly relevant to the cemetery’s use. Maps of New Amsterdam/New York are reproduced in this chapter.
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 3. The Archaeological Site (2006)
This chapter focuses on the archaeological site as such. We discuss the original landscape in the vicinity of the historic African Burial Ground, and then turn to the 1991-92 excavation site, which was a much smaller area, and show its location superimposed on historic maps. We look at physical impacts to the African Burial Ground that occurred during the active life of the cemetery, and then summarize the development of the site over the two hundred years between the closing of the cemetery and...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 4. Relative Dating (2006)
This chapter describes the rationale and methodology for dividing the burial population into temporal groupings. It is emphasized that the chronological sequence developed here is a relative one, the dates assigned to each grouping approximate. Burials are assigned to broad temporal groups on the basis of 1) location and stratigraphy relative to non-burial features at the site; 2) artifacts found in direct association with the deceased or in the grave fill; 3) coffin type; and 4) stratigraphic...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 5. Overview of Mortuary Population, Burial Practices, and Spatial Distribution (2006)
This chapter presents an overview of the archaeological evidence for population, burial practices, and spatial arrangements at the African Burial Ground. After providing a demographic profile of the population whose graves were disinterred, we turn to the overall evidence for burial practices, viewing the evidence from the site as the physical signature of the repeated performance of funerary ritual. Seven material aspects of mortuary practice are examined: coffins, grave orientation, body...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 6. The Early Group (2006)
Burials are assigned to the Early Group on the basis of coffin type, relationship to site features, and stratigraphy (see Chapter 4; problematic assignments are noted below). Burials placed in this group appear to pre-date the use of the eastern part of the cemetery by nearby pottery factories, in place circa 1730, for dumping of kiln waste. Absolute dating is not possible, however. For convenience, we give the Early Group a hypothetical end date of 1735. A sketch of the town and its population...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 7. The Middle Group (2006)
Most burials in the archaeologically excavated portion of the African Burial Ground are placed in the main or Middle Group, by default, because they were not clearly assignable to earlier or later cohorts. Yet even though the temporal groupings are relative rather than absolute, it is likely that burials assigned to the Middle Group were indeed interred during the middle decades of the 18th century. For convenience, we describe the period of New York’s history from approximately 1735 to 1760,...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 8. The Late-Middle Group (2006)
The Late-Middle Group comprises burials that have been distinguished from the main group because of stratigraphic relationships or because artifacts found with them are datable to the final third of the 18th century. It is possible that there is some overlap between the Late Middle and the Late Group, defined as post-1776. Nevertheless, in order to keep those burials that are most securely assignable to the later period (see Chapter 9) analytically distinct, we have separated out a Late Middle...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 8. The Late-Middle Group (2006)
The Late-Middle Group comprises burials that have been distinguished from the main group because of stratigraphic relationships or because artifacts found with them are datable to the final third of the 18th century. It is possible that there is some overlap between the Late Middle and the Late Group, defined as post-1776. Nevertheless, in order to keep those burials that are most securely assignable to the later period (see Chapter 9) analytically distinct, we have separated out a Late Middle...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 9. The Late Group (2006)
Late Group assignments are based on the dating of artifacts from grave shafts, on stratigraphic relationships, and, most importantly, on burial location, as discussed in Chapter 4. Reasons to place this group in the period from 1776 to the close of the cemetery include the destruction of the fence marking the cemetery’s north edge and likely usurpation of Rutgers property during the British occupation; and northward pressure caused by military uses of the ground to the south (for a fuller...
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Front Matter and Table of Contents (2006)
Front pages associated with the report.
New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. References (2006)
Bibliography from Volume I of the New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report.