Bioarchaeological Triage: The Ethics and Logistics of a Salvage Project at Cypress Grove Cemetery #1, New Orleans, Louisiana

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This work details a major salvage effort at the historic Cypress Grove Cemetery #1 in New Orleans, Louisiana. For decades, an area of wall vaults housing hundreds of burials dating from the mid-1800s to the 1920s has been overgrown and in disrepair. In 2022, the cemetery was allowed to begin work to repair these vaults. The remains – in various states of decomposition and degradation – were removed, bagged, and stored on site and plans are in place to rebury them in a mausoleum that is currently under construction. The authors were brought in to de-commingle the remains, determine the number of individuals, and to help the cemetery understand who was disinterred in an effort to respectfully and efficiently reinter these individuals. The research presented here documents the process of establishing the minimum number of individuals (currently 706) and thoughts about the ethics of cemetery removal of burials.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025   •
• 2025 SHA Poster Submissions

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow