"They were dying in such great quantity": An archaeology of human burials at Gloucester Point

Summary

Human burials have been a consistent problem for archaeologists excavating in advance of development at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at Gloucester Point. Georeferencing the location of previously identified burials served as a pilot project for a more extensive archaeological GIS. The re-examination of burial features not only reveals their approximate locations on the contemporary landscape, but also illustrates the complex history of human occupation at Gloucester Point, including Virginia Indian settlements, a colonial port town, a Revolutionary War fort and hospital, and nineteenth-century farms. Furthermore, analyses of human skeletal remains at Gloucester Point reflect the predominance of forensic rather than population-based bioarchaeological approaches. These historically contextual and publicly oriented osteobiographies predominate historic period skeletal analysis in the Chesapeake.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A Port Town in Conflict and Peace: Gloucester Town and the Forty-Third Year of Increasingly Complex Archaeology at Gloucester Point, Virginia   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 910