Keith C. Seramur, Kyle B. Campbell, Joseph B. Anderson, Ellen A. Cowan
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract Ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) was used to map anomalies characteristic of unmarked graves on the grounds of the modern Woodland Cemetery on the campus of Clemson University. Hundreds of these anomalies are believed to represent newly discovered unmarked graves belonging to African Americans including enslaved people, convicted laborers, sharecroppers, domestic workers, tenant farmers and wage workers, who contributed to the wealth of the Fort Hill Plantation or to building and maintaining the university. These burials appear to be in an organized arrangement indicating the presence of a burial ground where the graves would have been marked at the time of internment. Analyses of reflections from the bottom of the grave shaft detected horizontal bases as well as possible chambered and vaulted burials, a common vernacular burial type among African Americans in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A fewer number of graves showed hyperbolic reflections that can be produced by graves that contain coffins or a large artefact. This may indicate burial practices that changed over time or the status of the interred individual. The estimated length of the grave shaft in GPR grid data suggests that small adults or adolescents made up most of the burials (58%), then adults (28%) and infants and children (13%). In 1924, Woodland Cemetery was developed on Cemetery Hill, which had its first recorded burial in 1837. Plots were then gifted to prominent University leaders, faculty, staff and their families. The unmarked burials were found juxtaposed among these modern graves requiring modification of the current protocol for the operating cemetery to preserve the sacred space and to prevent destruction of these burials. This work affirms ongoing efforts by this public university to address its origins from a plantation and segregation in the American South.
期刊介绍:
The scope of the Journal will be international, covering urban, rural and marine environments and the full range of underlying geology.
The Journal will contain articles relating to the use of a wide range of propecting techniques, including remote sensing (airborne and satellite), geophysical (e.g. resistivity, magnetometry) and geochemical (e.g. organic markers, soil phosphate). Reports and field evaluations of new techniques will be welcomed.
Contributions will be encouraged on the application of relevant software, including G.I.S. analysis, to the data derived from prospection techniques and cartographic analysis of early maps.
Reports on integrated site evaluations and follow-up site investigations will be particularly encouraged.
The Journal will welcome contributions, in the form of short (field) reports, on the application of prospection techniques in support of comprehensive land-use studies.
The Journal will, as appropriate, contain book reviews, conference and meeting reviews, and software evaluation.
All papers will be subjected to peer review.