Reclaiming Identity at Forgotten Cemeteries in New York City
Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2018
Archaeological investigations of forgotten cemeteries provide archaeologists with a unique opportunity to protect human remains from additional development and also to reclaim and restore the identities (in whole or in part) of individuals who, for various circumstances, lacked the necessary protections to ensure that their graves would be undisturbed in perpetuity. The papers in this session will describe recent case studies where archaeologists used a combination of documentary research, archaeological excavation (both invasive and non-invasive), and bioarchaeological analysis to investigate abandoned or redeveloped cemeteries throughout New York City, including family burial grounds, burial grounds of enslaved and free individuals of African descent, potter’s fields, and religious institutions. Archaeologists have worked closely with descendant communities/stakeholders to ensure that those representing the voiceless are heard and their interests represented. For each site, archaeologists have protected human remains and restored basic human identity to those indivudals who were otherwise forgotten.
Other Keywords
Cemetery •
New York City •
Park •
Burial Ground •
Cultural Landscapes •
Identity •
New York •
Burial Grounds •
Enslaved Africans •
Staten Island
Temporal Keywords
Mid-Nineteenth Century •
18th Century •
18th and 19th centuries •
17th-19th centuries •
17th-19th century
Geographic Keywords
North America •
Coahuila (State / Territory) •
New Mexico (State / Territory) •
Oklahoma (State / Territory) •
Arizona (State / Territory) •
Texas (State / Territory) •
Sonora (State / Territory) •
United States of America (Country) •
Chihuahua (State / Territory) •
Nuevo Leon (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-6 of 6)
- Documents (6)
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Evidence of Things Not Seen: The Archaeological Investigation of Abandoned and Redeveloped Cemeteries in New York City (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
In New York, where developable land is scarce and the pace of development can be overwhelming, the social and cultural meanings of space and place can quickly change as properties change hands. Throughout New York’s history, many cemeteries and burial grounds have been redeveloped, often without the removal of graves. Human remains associated with historic cemeteries are present beneath the city’s parks and parking lots, and in the backyards and below the basements of buildings large and small....
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First a Burial Ground, then a Parade Ground, then a Park, then a Revelation (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Washington Square Park in New York City’s historic Greenwich Village is a prime example of a burying ground that is now a beloved urban park. In 2005, renovations to this historical park in a Landmark district required archaeology. That the park was a former Potter’s Field, by definition, the final resting place of the indigent and unknown, was recognized by the New York City Parks Department and local history buffs. The question was, did burials from the cemetery years (1797 to 1825) remain?...
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The Harlem African Burial Ground Project: Effective Collaboration Between an Archaeological Consulting Firm, a City Agency, and a Community Task Force (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
In the summer of 2015, the NYC Economic Development Corporation hired AKRF to conduct an archaeological survey inside a decommissioned bus depot in East Harlem, NY, the site of the c. 1665 to mid-19th century Harlem African Burial Ground. All surface signs of the burial ground were erased by more than 150 years of development and its history had been largely forgotten. However, passionate area residents, elected officials, and the leadership of the Harlem-based descendent church united to...
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Landscapes of Oblivion: Forgetting burial grounds and placing the past (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Forgetting is a cultural act. Memories of burial grounds do not fade away bleached by time. This paper explores the anthropology of forgetting: examining the role of burial grounds as meaningful places in cultural landscapes. The materiality of the burial grounds gives presence to descent, kinship, sodality and the generational transfer of wealth and property. The eighteenth-century Moore-Jackson burial ground is such a place. Over generations, Moore burial markers were placed to memorialize...
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Marking the Unmarked: The Confluence of Community Archaeology and Ground Penetrating Radar at the Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground, Bronx, NY (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
The 2010 discovery in a New York museum of a photograph labeled "Slave burying ground, Hunts Point Road," launched a Bronx elementary school's innovative preliminary research project leading to the identification of the unmarked and forgotten burial ground’s possible location. The City Parks Department subsequently initiated a documentary and Ground Penetrating Radar study that confirmed the enslaved burials to be segregated across the roadway from the 18th-century burial ground of the Hunt,...
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Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Recovering Three Cemeteries From the Outer Boroughs (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
HPI studied the Northern Cemetery of the Staten Island Quarantine Grounds, where patients from the Marine Hospital were buried in the mid-nineteenth century. The stories of immigrant inmates and caregivers at the facility provide a glimpse of the desperation experienced by those confined within. In 1858, nearby residents burned the Quarantine buildings to the ground to rid the community of "pestilence" and "miasma" associated with the hospital. HPI disinterred intact and partial burials from...