History Beneath Our Feet: Forgotton Bones: Uncovering a Slave Cemetery by Lois Miner Huey

The backhoe's teeth bit into the pavement, shattering the silence of the early morning with a loud roar. Workers were using the backhoe to dig a trench and lay a sewer pipe.

A round object rolled down the pile of debris and laid at the boots of a workman. He picked it up. Suddenly he found himself staring into the eye sockets and cupping the hinges of a jaw.

"Find anything interesting?" town historian Kevin Franklin yelled over the noise.

"A SKULL!" the worker shouted back.

Finding a human skull where one is not expected can be a big deal. After police experts determined that the skull was over 100 years old, local archaeologists in upper New York got interested. And when archaeologist Erin Klein's analysis showed the skull to be African-American, the scientists knew they might have found a rare upstate New York slave cemetery. Old records showed that the land was once part of the Schuyler family farm, and the carefully constructed coffins of the bodies buried there must have been made for the slaves of the family who farmed that land.

Many students are unaware that not all slaves were owned by Southern cotton plantation owners, and the discovery of these bodies, five infants, two children under ten, and six adults, all living before 1790, could provide rare insight into the lives of slaves on a northern American farm. Analysis showed that the bodies were buried over a period of years, in possibly three rows and in handmade coffins with handmade nails, made on the spot. They were wrapped in cloth shrouds and interred respectfully, all facing east in the custom of both African and Christian practice. Again, in accord with Christian practice, there were no grave goods found with the bodies.

Back in the lab, further bioarchaeological studies showed "attachment lesions," skeletal evidence of large muscle attachments suggesting hard work with the arms and shoulders and hands typical of farm laborers. The teeth of some showed evidence that they smoked clay pipes of the type found in British graves of the same period. Other bone tests showed that, with short-term exceptions, they had mostly enjoyed an adequate diet. DNA tests showed that that most were of West African ancestry, although two were born in Madagascar, an island on Africa's east coast. And finally some of the skulls provided molds for facial reconstruction, which allows readers to see the scientifically-determined facsimiles of some of the slaves, to look into the very individual faces of those interred on the Schuyler farm centuries ago.

For young readers who are intrigued by history and the related sciences that explore history, Lois Miner Huey's Forgotten Bones: Uncovering a Slave Cemetery (Millbrook Press) is an absorbing introduction to archaeology which indeed makes the past come alive, taking young readers right into the field, "into the trenches" with professional scientists who explore the physical history of which we are all a part. With many full-color photographs and old documents, inset fact boxes, and supplementary information about slave life introduced within the body of the book, as well as an appendix that includes glossary, index. sources, and bibliography, this short book makes for both a scholarly and deeply engrossing look at bioarchaeology for those middle and high school readers who may find the subject fascinating. Says Booklist, "... a vivid description of both the eighteenth-century slave experience and the field of archaeology."