Petit Jean's Graves (original) (raw)
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‘Lost’ for 27 Years, Petit Jean Archeological Site Gives Up Its Secrets
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An ancient aboriginal pictograph site on Petit Jean Mountain, Arkansas, was documented in 1980 and added to the National Register of Historic Places, but its location was forgotten. Rediscovered and renamed 27 years later, the rock shelter features 37 pictographs as well as stone artifacts and a natural pigment source.
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As established in 1923, Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas had no infrastructure, no management oversight, no appropriations to fund it, and not even a decent road to access it. Yet its first ten years were marked by expansion, scientific inquiry, and visitation by people from Arkansas and all over the country.
The Hatch Cemetery (16RA1087), Rapides Parish, Louisiana
The Hatch Cemetery (16RA1087) was discovered in 2001near Roxana, Rapides Parish, Louisiana. This paper discusses the gravestones and other features at the cemetery. Additionally, a member of the Hatch family surrendered at the Battle of Vicksburg and also played several roles in west-central Louisiana history.
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Petit Jean Mountain in 1914 was profoundly different from the resort the public enjoys in 2023. This third article in a series celebrating the Petit Jean State Park centennial presents documentary evidence of an earlier time as published in the Arkansas Gazette November 22, 1914.
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Folk Gravesites in New Orleans: Arthur Smith Honors the Ancestors
1998
The cemeteries of New Orleans, often called "Cities of the Dead," are renowned for their elaborate above-ground tombs arranged like little houses along narrow, labyrinthine pathways. New Orleans' oldest existing cemetery, St. Louis Number One, established in 1789, is located just outside the original French settlement known today as the French Quarter. This cemetery is of particular interest because of its picturesque beauty and the many historically significant New Orleanians who are interred there. The free-standing tombs, each containing two or three vaults, are usually owned by middle and upper class families; large multi-vaulted "society tombs" are owned by benevolent and fraternal organizations. The cemetery walls also contain vaults that are often called "ovens" because they resemble an old-fashioned baker's oven, and are used by people of more modest means. In both the free-standing tombs and the ovens, individual vaults are used for successive interments, and many family or society members may be housed within the same vault. Decomposition is rapid in New Orleans' semi-tropical climate even when the dead are embalmed, and custom dictates that after "a year and a day," the casket may be discarded and any remaining bones deposited in the back of the vault, making room for the next occupant (Wilson and Huber 1962; Huber 1974; Florence 1996a: 13-15; Florence 1997b:9-29). In New Orleans, with its blend of Latin-Catholic and African traditions, gravesite decorations are as distinctive as the cemeteries themselves. Compared to typical American cemeteries, where idiosyncratic monuments and unconventional memorial decorations are discouraged or even prohibited, the cemeteries of New Orleans allow residents considerable license in the embellishment of their burial places. Some New Orleans cemeteries require that gravesites be kept reasonably tidy and in good repair, but in others, anything goes. Within this exuberant style of cemetery decoration, one gravesite in St. Louis Cemetery Number One particularly attracted my attention. In 1986 I began to observe and photograph this highly individualized oven vault, located in the Basin Street wall just inside the main gate.' The niche and its protruding marble shelf, along with the path directly in front of them, form 23 24 Folklore Forum 29: 1 (1998) Carolyn Morrow Long an altar that is adorned with an ever-changing assemblage of objects. The focal point is always the same image of an African American woman wearing a wide-brimmed felt hat, derived from a studio photograph that has been repeatedly photocopied, enlarged, and hand colored. The portraits, which are carefully wrapped in plastic, bear the crudely lettered inscription:
From May 2007 through June 2012, faculty and students from the Department of Anthropology and Sociology conducted Phase III cultural resources excavation and bioarchaeological analysis of a French Colonial cemetery located at the Moran site (22HR511) in Biloxi, Mississippi. The work was supported by the Heritage Preservation Division of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and the Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP). The site is located in Harrison County in Section 26, Township 7 South, Range 9 West, on the U.S.G.S. Biloxi Quadrangle 7.5-Minute Series Topological Map (U.S. Geological Survey 2012) topographic quadrangle. Its physical address is 110 Porter Avenue, which is situated on the eastern side of the street just north of the intersection with US Hwy 90 (Beach Boulevard). The area under investigation consists of 6920 sq ft (0.16 acres or 0.06 hectares). The primary purpose of the investigation was to assess mortuary activity on the site related to the period between 1717 and 1723 when New Biloxi served as a staging ground for thousands of European immigrants brought over to work the inland concessions. The cemetery had first been revealed in 1969 after Hurricane Camille and was fully exposed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 with the devastating destruction of the Moran Art Studio which had been located on the property. Subsequent systematic excavation between 2007 and 2009 focused on the southeastern portion of the site, and yielded skeletal remains of approximately 27 individuals. Grave goods and Carbon-14 testing confirmed the early eighteenth century date for the cemetery. Burials were irregularly spaced and oriented on a general N-S axis. With few exceptions, individuals were in an extended supine position with hands crossed over the abdomen. One individual in the prone position as well as one set of stacked burials evidently sharing a single grave shaft suggest that interment may have been hastily and/or without great care. Burial goods consisted of a crucifix, three shroud pins, and two shell buttons, indicating that personal possessions of the deceased were likely given to the living. The human remains recovered subsequently underwent bioarchaeological analysis for demographic, health and activity patterns. The results revealed that the population was comprised predominantly of young adult males, which conforms to expectations based on historical documents. All those interred were likely of European ancestry; although this suggests a potentially segregated cemetery consistent with implementation of principles of the ancien régime, it is based on a very small sample size. Health patterns, including relatively short stature and indicators of frequent growth disruptions during childhood, suggest a stressed population, which supports historical documents noting the lower class origins of most who immigrated. In Spring 2012, the DMR purchased the property from the Moran family, and archaeological testing of the rest of the site took place in from May 14 until June 8 of that year. Nineteen units and over 200 shovel and auger tests were excavated. No new burials were identified, but one feature, a late nineteenth century refuse deposit, was discovered. Although further evidence of use of the site during the French Colonial period other than as a cemetery was not found, excavation did reveal extensive evidence of domestic occupation during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This accords with historical records that document a summer residence on the property constructed by 1891 as well as subsequent construction of an additional house on the property in the 1930s or 1940s. It is recommended that the human remains be reinterred on site with an appropriate memorial constructed to commemorate this often overlooked but pivotal period in the history of Biloxi.
Voyageurs in a New World: A French Colonial Cemetery in Nouveau Biloxi
Bioarchaeology of the American Southeast: Approaches to Bridging Health and Identity in the Past, 2018
New World colonization is the subject of Funkhouser and Hester’s analysis of human skeletal remains from the French colony of New Biloxi. They cite results of paleopathological assessment and ancient mtDNA analyses, in comparison with other French colonial cemeteries from the New World, and contemporaneous populations in Europe, finding groups of soldiers and sailors to be most alike, as mostly young and male, and having experienced childhood impoverishment and adult physical strain. As a population, they are comparable with Shuler and colleagues’ (chapter 9) analysis of a later 19th- and early 20th-century historic cemetery complex where sailors, laborers, and the indigent were also laid to rest. Funkhouser and Hester’s comprehensive application of paleopathological indicators is echoed in almost every chapter in this volume, from oral health (e.g., Listi, chapter 2; Betsinger and Smith, chapter 3; Griffin, chapter 4), to nonspecific infections and trauma (Stevens and colleagues, chapter 10). Most frequent in Funkhouser and Hester’s sample, though, appear to be those unfortunates who likely perished of epidemic disease, which may killed them so quickly as to have left no impact on their skeletons.