St Peter's street cemetery

"kdsp" 201110/October, Dr. Shannon Dawdy of the University of Chicago and archaeologist D.Ryan Gray (then a graduate student of C University) contacted an owner who was worried that the development of a property in the block where St. Peter's Street Cemetery was located would be affected by the proposed building. This fear is well-founded, because human remains have been found in this block at least twice before. Gray made a preliminary evaluation of the courtyard of the property by excavating a separate test unit, which confirmed the existence of human remains in the deep layer of the site. After the first coffin was found, the excavation was stopped (and backfilled) so that the Louisiana Archaeological Department and the Louisiana Attorney General's Office could be consulted. After discussion, it was agreed that archaeologists will have the opportunity to remove human remains before the proposed site construction, and will coordinate further underground disturbances with archaeologists to ensure the minimum impact on these remains. Technically speaking, this site belongs to the jurisdiction of the Law of Louisiana on the Protection of Unmarked Human Cemetery (R.S.8:67 1-68 1) and the Law of Louisiana on the Protection of Historical Cemetery (R.S.25:93 1-943). Many other former cemeteries on private property have been developed without considering these remains, and the property owners have made sincere efforts to solve the appropriate national legal problems related to burial. It was agreed that exhumation should be allowed as long as it is unavoidable and certain guidelines are followed. Some rules are put forward to guide the migration process and summarized in the license granted to the archaeological team:

1) All human remains will be excavated under the supervision of qualified forensic anthropologists (Mary Manhein and the facial laboratory of Louisiana State University, as the case may be).

2) If the tomb itself is a complete individual, then the complete individual will be removed.

3) Only graves that may be directly affected by construction should be demolished.

4) All graves will be analyzed by qualified experts, and will be reburied in suitable and recognized cemeteries after analysis.

Earth Search, a new Orleans customer relationship management company run by Dr. Jill Karen Jakubik, will join the forensic team of chief archaeologist Gray and LSU Faces for excavation. Due to previous obligations, Dr. Dodi was unable to participate in the next phase of the investigation. From west to east, areas with a grid of 3 meters from north to south and 6 meters from east to west were excavated in stages until tombs appeared. Another area of 3 m x 1 m was excavated to a shallow depth, because the planned swimming pool is not expected to be too deep in the east section. The excavation area is located near the previous test unit, but its position should not overlap with the coffin burial determined in it, because this burial extends below the wall of the adjacent property. Finally, 20 graves were found in the excavation area, but only 13 (representing at least 15 people) was removed. The rest of the tombs are either located at a deeper depth than the building or extend to the walls of the excavation area to avoid them. This work is not detailed, because there are likely to be more graves located in deeper places; However, in the investigation described in this paper, these tombs were not removed, because it is presumed that they will be protected by concrete in the pool planned for the site. In addition, in these investigations, a large number of separated and/or disjointed human bone fragments were found.

St Peter's street cemetery was "discovered" at least twice before it was excavated in 20 1 1 year. According to an article in Picayune Times1972165438+1October1,an unknown female bottle hunter found a coffin while digging in a construction site at the corner of Burgundy and Toulouse streets. This is the location of Maison Dupuy Hotel, which is a development project and occupies a large part of the block. There is little information about the coffin except that it is located under two different sets of brick foundations. Five coffins were found, one of which was thought to belong to a baby because of its small size. The newspaper report went on to describe that the bone and wood samples taken from the coffin were handed over to the coroner's office of the parish of Orleans. On March 20 15, I contacted the coroner's office to see if they had any records in this regard, but there seemed to be no documents or notes related to the case.

1984 In the spring, archaeologists were told that human remains were disturbed during the construction of the block at the junction of Toulouse, Burgundy, St. Peter and Beichengqiang Street. The description mentioned that hundreds of coffins were found and destroyed, and people took their skulls away from the scene as souvenirs. After some intense negotiations between the developer, the archaeological department, the city prosecutor and the Louisiana Attorney General's Office, the archaeologists of Louisiana State University were only allowed to salvage the relics exposed or affected by the building (Owsley et al., 1985). * * * Unearthed 32 tombs with different completeness, as well as coffins buried with them, some tombs and surrounding cultural relics. Generally speaking, coffins are simple, but well preserved, and consist of conical cypress boxes facing a grid of parallel streets. Although a rosary and a set of religious medals are a dramatic exception, almost no remains have been found. The pollen grains found in a coffin show that the flowers were buried with the man.

The human remains found at that time represented the first archaeological examination of the skeletal biology of Louisiana residents in the18th century. The individuals in the burial crowd seem to include Europeans, Africans, aborigines and hybrids, and most of them may represent enslaved Africans. Among the confirmed tombs, 26 were identified as adults (15 years old or older), as well as two children, one baby and three tombs without preserved bones. Pathological manifestations of bones are signs of diet and muscle tension, including bone hypertrophy and degenerative changes related to heavy and repeated physical labor and strain.