Using Geophysical Survey to Search for Burials at the St. Croix Leper Hospital

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) at the St. Croix Leper Hospital in the U.S. Virgin Islands has revealed new data for comparison to other locations in the Caribbean. At leper asylums/hospitals on St. Kitts, St. Eustatius, and Hassel Island, St. Thomas individuals with leprosy were buried in cemeteries on the grounds of these leper facilities. Based on public records in local newspapers, many residents of the leper hospital who died at the facility were buried in the public cemetery in Christiansted. During fieldwork conducted by NSF REU Site Exploring Globalization Through Archaeology project, GPR survey was conducted in several possible cemetery locations to assess if leper hospital residents were buried on the hospital grounds. These data will help us understand how leper hospital residents were treated in death and the facility’s spatial organization.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 2022 SHA Poster Submissions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology