Historical and Chemical Traces of an Ozark Cemetery for Enslaved African-Americans: A Study of Silhouette Burials in Benton County, Arkansas

Abstract

The identification of human graves in situations where there is little or no evidence of skeletal material or coffins has been a problem for archaeologists. In the spring of 1998, the Arkansas Archaeological Survey was hired to find the location of the "lost" Anderson family slave cemetery on property slated for a new airport. Field methods included front end loader blading and hand excavated units. The location of the slave cemetery on a low knoll in an agricultural floodplain was only identifiable by three features of disturbed soil thought to be grave-fill and the chemical remains of human burials. One feature contained a light colored stain identified as the archaeological phenomenon referred to variously as a ghost, silhouette, shadow, or degraded burial. In an attempt to confirm human burial by soil analysis, chemical tests were run on a limited number of samples for total digestion and exchangeable levels of elements present in human bodies. This study examines several elements that previous investigators have suggested as reliable indicators for silhouette burials. Because of frequent inundation and the addition of phosphorus to the field as a fertilizer, only the ratio of Zn/Cu is indicative of possible human burial. Zn/Cu ratios show clearly elevated levels at burial depth in the suspected cemetery features relative to control samples. 323

“Men, Women, and Children Starving”: Archaeology of the Donner Family Camp

“…The fact that nearly all of the bone recovered at Alder Creek is burned suggests that unheated bone may not have survived the site's acidic soils. Obviously, human bone or stains from the decay of entire bodies (e.g., Beard et al 2000) may remain in unexcavated areas some distance from the encampment. Other factors contributing to the lack of human bone, however, are worth exploring.…”

Delimitación del área probable de entierros del sitio RSCII (Santo Tomé, Santa Fe) mediante el análisis químico del suelo

“…En la medida en que determinadas condiciones de pH (de ligeramente ácidas a neutras) promueven la solubilidad del P de los diferentes tejidos humanos, principalmente de los tejidos duros, la probabilidad de que un área de entierros presente valores enriquecidos de este elemento es alta (Crowther, 1997;Holliday y Gartner, 2007). De este modo, el análisis del contenido de P de los suelos arqueológicos debería permitir la identificación de áreas de entierros aun cuando los huesos estén parcial o totalmente ausentes -por cuestiones vinculadas con la preservación ósea-, así como también la estimación de la extensión probable de dicha área en el caso de que la excavación haya sido parcial (Beard et al, 2000;Connor, 2007;Crowther, 1997;Farswan y Nautiyal, 1997;Solecki, 1951). Este último es, precisamente, el caso del sitio Río Salado-Coronda II (RSCII), localizado en la ciudad de Santo Tomé, en el centro-este de la provincia de Santa Fe, objeto de la presente comunicación (Figura 1).…”