Interpretation of infectious skeletal lesions 

 from a historic Afro-American cemetery 



Jerome C. Rose and Philip Hartnady 



Afro-American history is a complex 

 subject which has engendered consider- 

 able interest and numerous debates in- 

 volving not only historians, but an- 

 thropologists and demographers as 

 well. During Reconstruction (1865- 

 1877) the lives of Afro- Americans 

 went through numerous changes where 

 the former plantation slaves undertook 

 the transition from a life dictated by 

 others to one of self responsibility. This 

 transition was aided by temporary 

 provision of housing, food, and medi- 

 cal care by the occupying Union mili- 

 tary forces and other agencies both gov- 

 ernment and private (Stampp 1965). In 

 contrast to the well-documented slav- 

 ery era, health-related data for both the 

 Reconstruction and post-Reconstruc- 

 tion (1878-1930) periods are scarce 

 and, at times, of questionable quality. 

 No geographically specific understand- 

 ing of Afro-American demographic 

 processes between 1 860 and 1 930 can 

 ever be achieved because of the ques- 

 tionable quality of the 1870, 1890, and 

 1920 censuses (Farley 1970:3). This 

 scarcity of both demographic and dis- 

 ease data can be attributed primarily to 

 the lack of record keeping and inade- 

 quate census procedures resulting from 

 the turmoil of "carpetbag rule" in the 

 former Confederacy and a continuation 

 of this situation for Afro-Americans 

 with the establishment of legalized seg- 

 regation during the post-Reconstruc- 

 tion period. Until recently, the skeletal 

 remains of people from this time period 

 have been largely unavailable. Yet, 

 skeletal analysis can provide informa- 



Zagreh Paleopaihology Symp. IVHH 



tion critical to understanding the condi- 

 tions of life and health during this his- 

 toric period. 



The analysis of skeletal remains col- 

 lected during the relocation of Cedar 

 Grove (3LA97), a rural Afro- American 

 cemetery in southwest Arkansas, is ide- 

 ally suited for addressing issues of 

 postemancipation health. Demograph- 

 ic and paleopathological data are used 

 to test the imperfect historic reconstruc- 

 tions of postemancipation life and pro- 

 vide a more detailed picture, at least for 

 this sample, of diet, health, and the 

 general quality of life. The analysis of 

 the Cedar Grove skeletal sample also 

 provides an opportunity to test the va- 

 lidity of paleodemographic and paleo- 

 pathological interpretations by compar- 

 ing them with those derived from 

 census data and historic documents. It 

 is not uncommon for the utility of pa- 

 leodemography to be called into ques- 

 tion. For example, Bocquet-Appel and 

 Masset (1982) contend that paleode- 

 mography cannot provide a true or real- 

 istic reconstruction of a population 

 using skeletal data. Although this crit- 

 icism has been clearly answered by a 

 number of authors (Buikstra and 

 Konigsberg 1985; Van Gcrven and Ar- 

 melagos 1983), the Cedar Grove data 

 are used to test the concordance of pa- 

 leodemographic interpretations with 

 those derived from census data. Sim- 

 ilarly, doubts have often been raised 

 concerning paleopathology, in particu- 

 lar the inaccuracies of lesion diagnosis 

 (see Ubelaker 1982:344-345) and the 

 utility of using skeletal lesions to recon- 



struct disease patterns (see Buikstra and 

 Cook 1980:439-440). Again, concor- 

 dance between the paleopathological 

 interpretations and the historic litera- 

 ture is tested with the Cedar Grove ma- 

 terial. 



Materials and methods 



During the construction of a revetment 

 along the Red River, the U.S. Army 

 Corps of Engineers encountered what 

 was thought to be a small historic ceme- 

 tery and a prehistoric American Indian 

 farmstead. After determination of eligi- 

 bility for nomination to the National 

 Register of Historic Places, the marked 

 historic graves were relocated and the 

 prehistoric site excavated by the Ar- 

 kansas Archeological Survey. During 

 the excavation, an additional 104 un- 

 marked grave outlines were located. 

 Historic investigation established that 

 this cemetery had been used by the 

 Afro-American community associated 

 with the Cedar Grove Baptist Church, 

 which lost use of the cemetery when it 

 was covered by almost two meters of 

 silt during the 1927 flood. After exten- 

 sive negotiations and legal determina- 

 tions, those 79 graves scheduled for de- 

 struction by revetment construction 

 were excavated, analyzed, and relo- 

 cated to a new cemetery. The skeletal 

 remains and all associated grave con- 

 tents were excavated using standard ar- 

 cheological techniques and analyzed in 

 a field laboratory prior to reburial in a 

 new cemetery plot. All archeological 

 and osteological analyses were con- 



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