A Bioarchaeological Investigation of Structural Violence in the Mid-Nineteenth Century San Francisco

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Life and Death in the San Francisco Bay: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Historic Lifeways", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The purpose of this study is to explore the embodied evidence of structural violence through a bioarchaeological analysis of 16 commingled, fragmented, and pathological human remains. This exploration reveals how mid-nineteenth century San Francisco society marginalized individuals in life and death, the postmortem intervention they endured after death, and who was buried in the City Cemetery (from which the 16 skeletal remains were recovered). Methods such as biological profile, differential diagnosis, sharp trauma analysis, archival research, and review of the 1993-94 Palace of the Legion of Honor excavation records were used in order to complete this study. The findings of this study establish a pattern of health and disease for the individuals in the skeletal collection, as well as highlighting the lived and posthumous structural violence these individuals may have experienced.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Life and Death in the San Francisco Bay: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Historic Lifeways

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow