Bioarchaeology of Mission San Antonio de Valero: Preliminary Results and Methodological Insights from the Alamo Church and Long Barrack Restoration Project

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Mission San Antonio de Valero and the Alamo – A Construction History from Mission to Military Fortress, Texas, United States", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

During the 2019–2020 archaeological investigations at the Mission San Antonio de Valero, 12 historic burial features were recovered from the interior of the Alamo Church. The 12 exhumed burials represented a minimum number of 14 individuals, comprising nine adults and five subadults. Osteological preservation varied across the site due to environmental factors, taphonomic effects, and vertical placement of interments within the Alamo Church. The variability posed methodological challenges, prompting alternative approaches in analysis between individuals. The result was a multifocal approach that gained insight into the overall demography of these historic individuals, offering new perspectives on mission life and its inherent hardships. This presentation examines the preliminary results of the osteological findings and discusses the methodological challenges encountered in estimating the biological profile of these mission-era individuals.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Mission San Antonio de Valero and the Alamo – A Construction History from Mission to Military Fortress, Texas, United States   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow