The Bioarchaeology of None: Recovery and Analysis of an Historic Coffin from Fort McAllister State Park, Georgia.

Summary

In the spring of 2013, the office of the Georgia State Archaeologist was contacted by personnel from Fort McAllister State Park in Richmond Hill, GA, concerning what appeared to be an historic coffin eroding out of the marsh edge. Emergency salvage excavation was conducted to recover the remaining portions of the coffin. Initial field analysis indicated a sharp shouldered, hexagonal style coffin. Neither the lid nor any mortuary hardware was recovered. The coffin’s location is within the McAllister Plantation site (9BN22), an antebellum rice and cotton plantation. However, archival research indicates post-Civil War occupations and that the area was used as an historic dump site. This location is consistent with other coastal Georgia cemeteries such as the Butler Island slave cemetery, the slave cemetery at Wormsloe Historic Site and DuBignon cemetery on Jekyll Island, suggesting the marsh edge as a preferred location for intentional interment. Additional analysis further explored coffin construction to aid in determination of time period and archival research to determine whether this was a single burial, part of a larger cemetery or an unused, discarded coffin.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage