The application of strontium isotope analysis to historic cemetery contexts: a case study for the creation of robust individual identifications

Summary

Following the 1991-1992 excavation of the Milwaukee County Institutional Grounds Cemetery (1878-1925), up to 190 individuals were preliminarily identified using historical documentation, material culture, and geospatial analysis. Subsequent bioarchaeological analyses have provided an additional line of evidence for the identification of these individuals. The cemetery population of Western European immigrants and local/nonlocal native born Americans is composed of paupers, the institutionalized, and the unidentified of the city of Milwaukee during this period.

The limited recovery of discrete individual burial markers and the complex depositional sequence of interments necessitates further interrogation for the secure identification of these individuals. Improvements in strontium isotope testing have led to its increased applicability for the study of population movement, and for the purposes of this project, applicability as an additional line of evidence for the identification of individuals in this cemetery. Sample material will be obtained from the tooth enamel of select individuals with robust preliminary identifications. The natal strontium signatures of each sample will be compared with the expected local strontium levels of southeastern Wisconsin and the known strontium levels of the geographic regions ascribed to individuals in the historic burial record, thus supporting or rejecting previous preliminary identifications.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• People that no one had use for, had nothing to give to, no place to offer: The Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery

Keywords

Spatial Coverage