In Support of a Holistic Approach to Bioarchaeology: The Distribution of Bacterial Genera by Presence of Material Culture in the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery

Summary

This is an abstract from the "There and Back Again: Celebrating the Career and Ongoing Contributions of Patricia B. Richards" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Complicating the narrative of the traditional poor farm cemetery, the work of Patricia B. Richards has led to a more humanistic approach to interpreting archaeological data. This study presents oral microbiome data from twenty-five female individuals from the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (MCPFC) population. After approval was given in Spring 2022 by the Archaeological Research Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, bacterial DNA was extracted from dental calculus and the 16s rRNA gene was amplified. Four of the individuals showed the presence of a genera that has pathogenic species, suggesting a potentially high level of infectious diseases within the MCPF residents. Statistical analyses showed an unequal distribution of pathogenic genera between the individuals who had little material culture present in their burials and those who did not, potentially contributing to the re-identification of the MCPFC individuals, a central goal of the work being done with this population. Along with the presentation of these data will be a discussion of how the work of Dr. Richards has shaped our understanding of the complexity of life within a poor farm and how the integration of multiple lines of evidence can lead to a more holistic understanding of pauper cemeteries.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• There and Back Again: Celebrating the Career and Ongoing Contributions of Patricia B. Richards   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38709.0