Bioarchaeology of the African Diaspora in the Americas: Its Origins and Scope Author(s): Michael L.

Blakey Source: Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 30 (2001), pp. 387-422 Published by: Annual Reviews Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3069222 Accessed: 23/04/2009 10:54
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Annu. Rev. Anthropol.2001. 30:387422 Copyright? 2001 by AnnualReviews. All rightsreserved

OFTHEAFRICANDIASPORA BIOARCHAEOLOGY
IN THE AMERICAS: Its Origins and Scope
Virginia23187 College of Williamand Mary,Williamsburg, Departmentof Anthropology, and Departmentof Anatomy,College of Medicine,Howard University,Washington, DC 20059; e-mail: mlblak@wm.edu

MichaelL. Blakey

archaeology, biohistory, slavery paleopathology, Key Words AfricanAmericans, * Abstract The results of over 70 years of African Diasporicbioarchaeology are discussed and explainedas emergingfrom distinctinterestsand traditionsof AfricanDiasporanstudies, sociocultural history,physicalanthropolanthropology, is the core in thatchronological order.Physicalanthropology ogy, and archaeology, by bioarchaeology, yet it has been the least informed disciplineof African-American construct Forensicapproaches to bioarchaeology culturaland historicalliteratures. are a past that fails to be eitherculturalor historical,while biocultural approaches emergingthat constructa more humanhistoryof AfricanDiasporiccommunities. The involvement of AfricanAmericans,both as clients and as sourcesof scholaras in the example of the New York ship, has begun to transform bioarchaeology AfricanBurialGround.The social historyof the field examinedhere emphasizes of diasporans the scholarship themselves,and critiquesa bioarchaeology that, until recently,has had little relevanceto the people whose historybioarchaeologists construct.

INTRODUCTION
The origins, development,and currentscope of Africandiasporicbioarchaeology are examined below. The review are organizedas a social history, emphasizing the auxiological interactionof diverse traditionsof scholarshipwith the social, political, and economic forces by which that field of study developed.The major research findings of selected studies are reviewed, and the vast majorityof the literature in African-American bioarchaeologyis referredto. The review attemptsto (a) describe the scope of theory and method used by biohistorians,(b) presenttheirresearchrebioarchaeologistsand anthropological sults on the temporal,regional, and industrialdiversity of the historic African Diasporain the Americas,and (c) explainhow this field has been shapedby social historicalphenomena.The reviewer'svantageis thatof a physical anthropologist, a science historian,and an African Americanwho has participated in formative research on the the two decades. bioarchaeological diasporaduring past 0084-6570/01/1021-0387$14.00 387

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I believe it is the act of relating bioarchaeologyto the longer and broader developmentof diasporanstudies, and an evaluationof the field's relationship to African Americans themselves, that most distinguishes this perspective.The AfricanDiaspora,as the termdeveloped,is more a concept thaneithera technical and motivated specializationor a geographicalareaof study.It is interdisciplinary by emic concerns. According to Harris (1993), the "Africandiaspora concept subsumesthe global dispersion(voluntary andinvoluntary) of Africansthroughout history; the emergence of a culturalidentity abroadbased on origin and social conditions;andthe psychologicalor physicalreturnto the homeland,Africa.Thus of a dynamic,continuousand viewed, the AfricanDiasporaassumesthe character complex phenomenonstretchingacross time, geography,class, and gender." African-American biohistory"hasevolved into the studyof both the biological and socioculturalfactors that have... influenced the health, fertility, morbidity and mortalityof Afro-Americansin the New Worldwithin an historicalcontext. Afro-American biohistoryis a meeting groundfor the many disciplinesthatfocus on the healthanddisease of Africanslaves andtheirdescendantsin the Americas" and (Rankin-Hill1997). Principal amongthesedisciplinesarehistory,archaeology, biological anthropology. Although Rankin-Hilluses the term to encompassboth historicaland historicalarchaeologicalstudies, my practicaluse here of the term biohistoryrefersto researchthatrelies primarilyon writtenrecordsor anatomical collections; the termbioarchaeologyI reservefor studies thatfocus on excavated archaeologicalpopulations.Overall,the traditionsof Americanhistory,archaeology, and physical anthropologyhave continuedto merge for the developmentof these specializations. By the above definitions, African-Americanbioarchaeology and biohistory of diasporicstudies,butfor inmighthavebeen subsumedunderthebroadumbrella evolved has not have reasons that Juxtaposed separately. teresting happened.They andperiodicallycross-fertilizing,these separatebutrelatedresearchdomainsalso reflect differentethnic and social vantageson the black experience,emphasizing differentrangesof methodologyand motivations.Diasporicstudiesdevelopeddiwhich andotherdiasporicscholarship, rectlyfromthehistoryof African-American develand the of tools archaeology biology. Bioarchaeology rarelyincorporated oped from two anthropologicalsubdisciplinesthat, like biohistory,have evolved andother"white"scholarship, fromtraditions of Euro-American rarelyincorporatof diasporan studies. andactivistunderstandings the social humanistic, science, ing Both traditions, however,developedwithina commonworldof intellectual,social, and political change thatconnectedand divided them. These segmentedtrendsfosteredby a "racially"segregatedAmericansociety African have recently been merged into a single study of the eighteenth-century This BurialGroundin the City of New York,for which I am principalinvestigator. review looks backwardto the origins and evolution of the intellectualtrendsthat have coalesced only at the end of the twentiethcenturywith a single project to garer nationalattention.It commentson the equally recentemergenceof bioculachieveda whose liberal-leftformulation turalandpubliclyengagedanthropology

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new compatibilitywith diasporanintellectualtraditions,thus allowing the present merger and synthesis. And then there remains a distinct forensic traditionthat racializes and dehistoricizesthe diasporicexperience.

ORIGINSOF AFRICANDIASPORASTUDIES
Studiesof the AfricanDiasporawere probablybegunby Catholicpriests,commissioned by the SpanishCrown,who deviatedfromtheirassignmentof investigating Native Americanswith foraysinto the culturesandlanguagesof Africansenslaved in the West Indies. At the end of the legal British tradein humancaptives from Africa, British studies were also commissioned (Drake 1993, Herskovits 1941), which, taken with the detailed commercialdata on enslaved Africans throughout the Americas,are heavily relied on for knowledge of the diasporaduringslavery. As an example, an importantnew databaseat HarvardUniversity has amassed many of the diversecolonial recordson the Americanslave trade. Yet the accountingof chattel is less than a humanhistory.The record of the humanexperience of Africansin the Americasduringslaveryis sparse,afforded mainly by the initial writings of people who had themselves been enslaved. Its aboutslavery(withcomments Anglophonebeginning(1772-1815) is as narratives on life in Africa), of the humanityof blacks and the inhumanitiesfoisted on them Gronniosaw, by whites,in the worksof freedandescapedcaptivessuchas Morrant, Cugoano, Equiano, and Jea (Gates & Andrews 1998), often arguingtheir cases with moralfervor. Later,the narrativesof abolitionistand statesmanFrederickDouglass (1950) exemplified his life in slavery and damned the institutionin a more analytical vein. In 1854, in a speech to scholars at WesternReserve University, he also attackedthe racial determinism,craniometry,and racist Egyptology of Morton, Agassiz, Nott, and Gliddon(Nott & Gliddon 1854). WithDouglass's "TheClaims of the Negro EthnologicallyConsidered"(1950), an African-American genre of and activist critical, dialectical, environmentalist, vindicationist, scholarshiphad that would form a fundamental distinction of begun Diasporanscholarship.And it would emergein oppositionto the new genreof physicalanthropology andAfrican which claimed to be an (Egyptian)archaeology, Douglass merely attemptto justify Other African Americans were to Africa and bringingback reports slavery. going to elevate an understanding of Africa and its relationshipto U.S. blacks for either motives (see Delany 1861, Crummell1861). missionaryor nascentPan-Africanist Haitian leader and scholar Ant6norFirmin (1885) wrote a 600-page anthropological treatise,De l'egalite des Races Humaines,in 1885, counteringarguments of de Gobineau'sadherentsamong the membersof the Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris, which Firmin had penetratedas one of two black members (Firmin 2000). No white American, British, or French anthropologistof the nineteenth 2000, Gould century opposed racial determinismand ranking (Fluehr-Lobban 1996).

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The American Negro Academy that Crummellfounded in 1897 served as a think tank of and for African Americans whose interest was in the uplifting of a global black race. W.E.B. Du Bois, a chartermemberof the Academy, would in 1899. Du Bois went on for more publishthe firstempiricalurbanethnography than seven decades as the dean of African-Americansocial historical research, civil rights,and socialist organizing.[Du Bois with applicationto Pan-Africanist, andFirminmet at the firstPan-African Congressin Paris,in 1900 (Fluehr-Lobban in Firmin2000)]. The AtlantaUniversityStudies, which Du Bois began in 1898, were a comprehensiveprogramof sociological and historicalresearchon blacks; his editorshipof the NAACP'sCrisis appliedsocial science to the civil rightseffort at the beginningof the twentiethcentury(Harrison& Nonini 1992; see Harrison 1992 and others in this special issue of Critiqueof Anthropologydevoted to Du Bois' influence in anthropology).His Jamaican-American contemporaryof the Marcus a student of African and biblical history Garvey, early twentiethcentury, of the Universal was concernedwith and head Association, Negro Improvement the building of an ideology and organizationfor diasporicself-help and African repatriation. The African-Americanresearch was nearly always critical, in that it began from the observationthat white racism had distorted the historical record that reinforceda sense of whites' entitlement,obscuredtheirinequities,andinculcated a sense of inferiorityin blacks. Du Bois (1915) begins an early study of Africa and its diasporaby saying thatthe "timehas not yet come for a complete history of Negro peoples. Archaeologicalresearchin Africa has just begun, and many sources of informationin Arabian,Portuguese,and othertongues are not fully at ourcommand;andtoo it mustfranklybe confessed, racialprejudiceagainstdarker peoples is still too strong in so-called civilized centers for judicial appraisement of the peoples of Africa."The problemof an ideologically distortedAfricanapast continuedto inspire a search for informationby Diasporanscholars,creatingan literature. enormousbody of "vindicationist" of the twentieth the first century,Zora Neal Hurston(Hemenway part During and Caribbean Mikell the 1977, 1999) conveyed complexityof African-American and folklore. The HaitianMarxworks based on culturesthrough literary ethnology ist ethnologistJacquesRoumain(Fowler 1972) helpedfoundthe Negritudemovement, which paralleledthe HarlemRenaissancein FrancophoneAfrica and the Caribbean, writingaboutHaiti in a humanisticvein similarto Hurston's.Another Haitianscholaractivist,JeanPrice Mars,foundedthe Society of African Culture and helped found Presence Africaine, the scholarlyorgan of black Francophone intellectuals.It was here in 1955 that Senegalese scholar CheikhAnta Diop first publishedportionsof what would become, among African and diasporicreaders andlinguisticanal(AntaDiop 1974), the most influentialclassical archaeological anthropologist, ysis of the Africanityof ancientEgypt.AnotherAfrican-American KatherineDunham,throughthe vehicle of dance, studiedandperformedthe common and deviating threadsof African diasporic culture and religion in Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, and the United States. African-Americananatomist and physical

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anthropologistW. MontagueCobb focused on issues of evolution, race, racism, andhealthcarein the United Statesin the middlethirdof the century,also combining his biology with humanismand politics (Rankin-Hill& Blakey 1995; see also Caroline Bond Day physical anthropologist,under Hooton in Ross et al 1999). FernandoOrtiz conductedboth bioarchaeologicaland ethnographicwork on the African influencesof Cuba(1929, 1947). Black anthropologist IreneDiggs, having workedwith both Ortizand Du Bois, covered a broadrangeof U.S. and Latin American subjects (see Bolles 1999). African-AmericanhistorianWilliam Leo Hansberryhad been the first to write a thesis in African studies at Harvardbefore taking a faculty position at Howard,where in the early 1920s he advocated for African studies and archaeologyprograms.It was Melville Herskovits,howat Northwestern ever, who would startthe firstAfricanstudiesprogram University following a brief visiting position at Howard,where he studied "race crossing" (Herskovits1928). In 1916, historianCarter Woodson,also at HowardUniversity, establishedthe Journal of Negro History. The organization for which the Journal was principalorgan,the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (toLife and History), began day the Association for the Study of African-American "Negro History Week"(today Black History Month) in orderto disseminatethe history of peoples of African descent. Workby the Fisk- and Harvard-educated historianJohnHope Franklin(1947) should also be noted amongthese pre-1960s contributions to diasporicstudies. This is but a small sample of the prolific contributors of that period, suggestive of the breadthand focus of domestic and international work towarddiasporic studies.Withthe exceptionof the enigmaticHurston,all were involvedin political activism, and many were involvedin the Pan-Africanist movement,which sought to free the continentof colonialism and to unite it and its diasporicpeoples. Their scholarlyefforts were to preserveand reporton African culturalpersistence and creativityon the continentandin the Americas,to revise whatthey saw as Eurocentric distortionsof the Africanaworld, and to foster an understanding of common culturalidentity,albeit at times incorporating an essentializedracial identity,not unlike contemporary Europeanromanticists. Whitearchaeologists andphysicalanthropologists hadinitiatedno suchjournals andresearchorganizations the nor did 1960s, by theypublishin blackjournals.But some Euro-American social andculturalanthropologists andhistoriansdid use the Journal of Negro History and Phylon (edited by Du Bois at AtlantaUniversity). FranzBoas's work on and interestin Africanculturesgave an important foundationfor Americanscholarship in this area.His empiricalandculturaldeterminist scholapproacheswere both welcomed by and in conflict with African-American based on how the Boasians did and did not relate to civil arship, rightsgoals (Willis but 1972, Baker 1998). Colonial Europeananthropologyof Africa was abundant hadlimitedthe involvementof Americananthropologists untilthepostcolonialand Cold Warera breachedthe proprietary wall [for an example of this change point in a meeting between Evans Pritchard,Melville Herskovits,and a young Elliot Skinnerat Oxford,see Mwaria(1999, p. 280)]. Boas' studentMelville Herskovits

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BLAKEY (1930, 1941), alongwithRogerBastide(1967), was amongthe firstof non-African Americansto take an interest in a "hemisphere-wide synthesis"of black life in the diaspora.In the Boasianvein, theirworkfocused on the persistenceof African andmiscegenation,withoutdevotingseriousstudyto social culture,acculturation, and economic discrimination (Drake 1993). Herskovits,like many diasporanscholars,poignantlyrecognizedthatmuch of what had been writtenaboutAfricanAmericansconstituteda "mythof the Negro past." In sum, this mythology conspired to present blacks as "a man without a of his own, had been readily and past"who, being withoutculturalcontributions Herskovitsintendedto expose and correct by Europeans. completely acculturated the myth by undertakingthe study of "Africanisms" among diasporic peoples (1941). Yet the liberal white (and prominentlyJewish) traditionof scholarshiprepresented by Boas and Herskovits was also distinguishedby a patronizingand instrumental to black scholarswho were often alreadyadvancedin their approach of usingHurston approach Diasporainterests.AlthoughBoas tooktheconventional to gain access to craniometricdata from black communities(Willis 1972, Drake 1980), Herskovitsdeterredblack studentsfrom studyingin Africa because it was rationale too similarto theirown culture(Mwaria1999, p. 280). A counterintuitive from the perspectivesof most African Diasporanintellectuals,the anthropological characterization of the etic perspectiveas objective had served to empower the voices of white anthropologists concerningthe non-white world where they worked. Despite these American social constraints,these majorEuro-American culturalanthropologists commonly referredto the publicationsof the AfricanDiand vice versa. asporanintellectuals, These conflicts of liberalracismmight be partlywhy intellectualcross-fertiliand Columbia(see Sanday 1999, p. 248) zation with diasporansat Northwestern tended to proceed throughliteraryinteraction,whereascollective use of primary data by black and white scholarsoccurredat Chicago duringthe same period. It at Chicago were thatthe sociologists and social anthropologists is also important the culturalfocus economic in contrast to examine social and to inequality, willing at Northwestern andColumbia.Underthe influencesof W.LloydWamerandblack graduatestudentssuch as St. Clair Drake (Bond 1988, Baber 1999), E. Franklin Frazier(1939) (Edwards 1968), and Allison Davis (Browne 1999), Du Boisian sociology was melded to British social anthropologywith an eye towardpolicy Drake& Clayton(1945) is anexcellentexample correctivesfor "theraceproblem." of this synthesis(also see Harrison1992). Herskovits'elucidationof the "mythof the Negro past"and its alternative (i.e., thatthe Negro had a culturalhistory)was meant, however, to debunkthe ideological legitimationof social and economic inequity as its contributionto Myrdal'sstudy (1945), a study being coordinated by the Chicagoans. were beginningto culturalanthropologists By the 1960s, some Euro-American expandtheirthinkingto includeboth a diasporicscope anda critiqueof inequality. NormanWhittenand John Szwed organizedthe firstanthropological symposium

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on the diaspora,with white and black contributors, leading threeyears laterto the publicationof Afro-American Anthropology: Contemporary Perspectives(Whitten & Szwed 1970). Along with the work of Mintz (1974) (who had a degree from Columbiaand who studied with Herskovits)in the Caribbean(1951, 1974) and MarvinHarrisand otherswho undertookthe Stateof Bahia-ColumbiaUniversity CommunityStudyProjectin Brazil(Hutchinson1957), one beganto see studiesof the socioeconomic effects of diasporicexploitationconductedby Euro-American threegenerationsdown the Boasian lineage. anthropologists Throughoutthe early developmentof researchon the African Diaspora, the membersof that diasporawho framedthat researchapproached the subject with both interdisciplinaryand activist bents, whether missionary, integrationist, & Harrison1999). Drake(1980) Marxist,or Pan-Africanist (Harris1993, Harrison describesthisAfrican-American intellectualtradition as "vindicationist" andmeant to correctthe omissions and distortionsof the mainstream Eurocentrictradition. The researchof some Euro-American in the Boasian lineage was anthropologists useful in those efforts.The interethniccollaborationat Chicagohad policy implications. Yet black scholars maintaineda front-linestance, as they had since the antislaverymovement,in assertingthe need to increasethis work againstthe preof the black experiencethat was systematicallyperpetrated vailing "denigration" Western education. FrederickDouglass had elucidatedan ideological myth of by theNegropastnearly100 yearsbeforeHerskovits,andAfrican-American effortsto and activist destroythe myth continuedto evolve into intellectual,organizational, dimensionswithin the futureblack world. Those mentionedabove are a small andprominentsampleof the majorsources of in-depth researchon people of African descent between the mid-nineteenth century and 1960. Their research,humanisticexpression, and political activism attended the global emergence of the African diaspora from slavery, colonialto an understanding of people of ism, and segregation.It deliberatelycontributed African descent and their relation to the world that would empower those transitions and adjustments.In 1965, as an outgrowthof its International Congress of African Historians convened in Tanzania,UNESCO publications in several theme (Harris1993). languagesreferencedthe "AfricanDiaspora"as a recurring the late 1960s and scores of black studies 1970s, During programsand deat U.S. and universities as partmentssprang up recently desegregated colleges black studentsphysically took over campusbuildingsfor thatpurpose.Duringthe 1980s and 1990s, the emphasison "blackstudies"became more resoundinglydiand otherscholarsworking asporic.And althoughtherearemany Euro-American in African-American studies programsat predominantly white institutionsin the United States, they remainthe most likely academic home of black faculty, and the socioculturalrefuge of black students,to be found in those institutions. The articulationand disarticulation between these developmentsand the field of bioarchaeologyis a majortheme addressedbelow. This summaryof intellectual historyprovidesa referencepoint againstwhich to contrastthe development of an African Diasporic bioarchaeologythat, thoughrecently impactedby black

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BLAKEY and culturalscholarship,began along a segmentedtrajectoryof white ecological the study of black people very differand racial scholarshipthat has structured has takenplace, in fact, virtuallywithoutrecognitionof the ently.Thatstructuring intellectualtraditionsdescribedabove. Archaeologyand physilonger-developed have experiencedeven less interaction with the blackintellectual cal anthropology I turnnow to the white traditionsthan did Americansocioculturalanthropology. traditionsof physical anthropology (or in their unmarkedguise "mainstream") and archaeology,whose brancheswill also penetrateAfrican Diasporicresearch duringthe 1970s.

AND THENEGRO ANTHROPOLOGY PHYSICAL

African-American bioarchaeologyas it has usuallybeen practicedcombinesskeletal biology (principallythe specializationin paleopathologyor the studyof health and disease in ancient populations)and historicalarchaeology(the archaeology of the post-Columbianera in the Americas). Skeletal biology has a longer concern with people of African descent in the Americas than has archaeology.For most of that time, physical anthropologyfollowed a different trajectoryfrom other research. This is mainly because physical anthropologyhas had little, if any, concern for culture or history. Its principal concern for racial differences or as "Negroes,""Negroids," meantthatAfrican-descent populations,constructed with an for were "Caucasoids," important group comparisons biologically"black," "Caucasians,"or "whites" as a biological standardof normalcy. This racist has been nineteenth-andearly twentieth-century historyof physical anthropology Gould 1996, Blakey 1996, Smedley 1993, Armelagos& extensivelycritiqued(e.g., Goodman1998). It is now simpleto summarizethatapartfrominterspecificdifferclassified humanpopulationsracially and created ences, physical anthropologists orpreevolutionary these wereevolutionary of races. Whether hierarchical rankings were at placed the top, Africans groups(Caucasoids) rankings,European-descent Americans and Asians and Native at the bottom, (Mongoloids)usually (Negroids) intermediate. Althoughracialclassificationswere at times more diverse, from the time of Linnaeus' eighteenth-century taxonomy to the UNESCO Statementon and EuropeanphysiRace in 1951, this hierarchywas typical of Euro-American It was typical of the thinkingand policies of the generalwhite cal anthropology. were part. populationof which physical anthropologists of objective sciThe emphasison race was partof a broaderconceptualization ence definedby naturalhistoricalexplanationsof variationsin naturalbiological categories (e.g., race). The cognizant point was to develop a science of "man" grounded in the same principles as zoology, biology, anatomy, and medicine, from which fields most physical anthropologists initially derived.But the resultPhysical anthropologyserved as a means ing science was clearly not "objective." of ideological productionthat naturalizedand, thus, justified colonialism, racial segregation,eugenics, class, and gender inequity.The United States, which had

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no African colonies to understandand manage, instead needed simply to maintain the centuries-oldsubjugationof a black racialcaste. AmericanNegroes were consideredsynonymouswith formerslaves, who were expectedto be thankfulfor the opportunitiesChristianityand acculturation had affordedfor them to emerge above their assumedabsence of priorcivilization, to be helpful to white patrons. The dearthof mainstreamresearch and education on Africa and diasporic cultures(along with the conceptualremovalof Egypt from Africa) meantthatunlike Europeanidentity,Negroid identity was left to standas naked as a chimp. There were no contradictions between "themyth"andphysical anthropological study of blacks because the biological category of race dehistoricizedand naturalizedthe identitiesof those to whom it was applied.Physical anthropology was the primary authorof the myth.The containment of vindicationiststudieswithinthe Diasporan communitiesthemselves helped maintainthe myth as an essential componentin Euro-America's constructionof white identity. The SmithsonianInstitution'sleading physical anthropologist, Ales Hrdlcika, was assigned the task of reviewing all of the work on "the Negro" in 1927 for the NationalResearchCouncilCommitteeon the Negro (Hrdlicka1927). His bibliographyincluded sociological works of Du Bois and Frazierand the historical work of Woodson and other African-Americanwritersamong a majoritylist of white scholarshipanalyzing what was then termedthe Negro problem.Hrdlicka viewed the previouswork as shoddy,not rigorous,and "tingedwith more or less bias for or against the Negro" (p. 207) and proposedthat futureresearchshould focus on the Negro brain(the organin which he specialized),which, afterall, was the "realproblemof the AmericanNegro."He then continuedwork on measurements of the skulls of 26 living African Americansfound at HowardUniversity andfudgedhis dataso that"thefull-bloodNegro"appeared to be of inferior'menIn since Morton'stime, the tality' (Hrdlicka1928; Blakey 1996, pp. 76-77). fact, of the had been done almost on anatomical collections of the study Negro entirely recentlydeceasedor on living populations[foran exampleshowingthe deleterious effects of miscegenationin Jamaica,see Davenport& Steggerda(1929)]. EarnestHooton (Harvard) would follow Hrdlickaas America'smost influential physical anthropologist, beginning in 1930. The Pecos Canyon study by Hooton also established what has variouslybeen called the statistical(Armelagos (1930) et al 1971), paleoepidemiological (Buikstra & Cook 1980), or demographic which initiatedthe devel(Aufderheide& Rodreguez-Martin 1998, p. 7) approach, of modem in which vein most opment paleopathology, bioarchaeologyis currently conducted.Paleoepidemiologywould characterize the core of African-American bioarchaeologicalstudies thatemergedduringthe 1980s, but not before. Therewere exceptionsto the dominantracialdeterministic trendin earlyphysical anthropology. Studiesof the new documentedanatomicalpopulations(maceratedcadaversfromthe dissectingroomsof medical schools) beganen force during the 1930s. As it happened,the largestcollection, at [Case]Western ReserveUniversity, was completedby T. WingateTodd,a liberalScottishphysical anthropologist who had been an officer among Colored troops in Canada(Cobb 1939a). Todd's

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collection's craniashowedenvironmental causes of analysis of the Hamann-Todd differences in black and white cranial development,from which he deduced an he made equalpotentialfor achievementin these "races,"in a uniquepresentation at a meeting of the NationalAssociation for the Advancementof ColoredPeople (Todd 1930). Todd'sliberalenvironmental analyseswere furthered by Cobb (his formerstudent and an African-American at Howard),who used data physical anthropologist from skeletal collections and living populationsto show that biology did not determinethe athleticacumenof blacks or whites (Cobb 1936). Furthermore, Cobb was one of the first physical anthropologiststo use availabledemographicdata, withina synthesizedevolutionaryand social historicalparadigm,to show the high adaptabilityof African Americans against the adversities of slavery and racial segregationin the United States (Cobb 1939b). Cobb would laterput his approach to physical anthropologyand social medicine to service in the U.S. Civil Rights movementin the diasporan tradition of activistscholarship(Rankin-Hill& Blakey 1994). But these studies seem to have had little impact on the developmentof anthropology. Measurements of the skull meantto show a racial evolutionarybasis of social inequality(havingevolved from prescientificphrenology)continuedas the focus of the physical anthropologyof Negroes until WorldWarII. Craniometry would thencontinueas the focus of descriptiveracialtaxonomicstudiesin colonialAfrica (Tobias 1953, Oschinsky 1954, Villiers 1968) and in American studies of racial admixture(Pollitzer 1958) and in forensic studies for the identificationof crime victims and missing persons.

CONCEPTION OF AFRICAN DIASPORIC BIOARCHAEOLOGY

Physical anthropologystood at the doorstepof modem paleopathologyduringthe schol1930s, when African Diasporicbioarchaeologybegan. African-American was not nor was a keen in interest the Africana world. involved, Instead,the arship field would grow from the physical anthropologist's main interestin race, applied to AfricanDiasporicskeletonsaccidentallydiscoveredby archaeologists who were for extinct Indians. looking presumably pre-Columbian In 1938, a teamof Oxfordarchaeologists, fundedby Northwestern andColumbia sites in the AfricandiasUniversities,excavatedsome of the firstbioarchaeological pora (Buxtonet al 1938). In 1939, T. Dale Stewart,who had long been Hrdlicka's assistant curatorat the SmithsonianInstitution,respondedto this article and to with E. M. Shilstone, who had made a relatedfind in the British correspondence colony of Barbados(Stewart 1939). Stewart'sposition at the U.S. National Museum made him a likely experton the racial identificationof the curiousremains of the one, male, African-lookingskull found in an apparentlyArawak (Taino) middenin Barbadosand the two "Negro"skulls thatwere found on WaterIsland, St. Thomas, U.S. VirginIslands.His analysis was that the skeletal remainswere

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more consistant with a "Negro"than a "Negroid"classification.It was actually the culturaldata of dental versus cranialmodificationthat were most convincing of African ancestry.Buxton et al (1938) commented on a similar situation remethods portedby Duerdenfor a Jamaicansite in 1897, in which the craniometric seemed unreliablefor explainingAfricans among the remainsof the Arawak.In all cases, the African burials were assumed to be later intrusions,although the of African was not sufficientlycareful to discount contemporaneity stratigraphy and Taino burials.The St. Thomas individuals(an adult male and female) were buried in association with red ochre mounds and stone artifacts,and with a pot over the face of one of the "Negro"individuals.Nor is it at all clear from these publicationswhy the site is assumed to be pre-Columbian(the authorsactually referto pre-1700) simply because therewere Tainoartifacts; Tainoswere actually in early colonial and genocidal times. The remainswere presentin the Caribbean curatedat the UniversityMuseum at Oxford,but the temporalrelationshipsmay neverbe resolved. Therewould not be anotherdiasporicstudy until 35 years later and undersimilarlyaccidentalcircumstances. A notablecomparisonis foundin the workby Ortiz(1927), andin laterworkby Rivero de la Calle (1973), on severalcases of dentalfiling or modification(mutilacion) in Cubanskeletalremains.Althoughthe generalassessmentof the skeleton is limited,the historical,ethnographic, andfolkloriccontextis extensivelyrevealed with the analysis of the significance of this practice.The practice of mutilacion was associatedwith Maroons(cimarrones)and religious enclaves. These are also the only examples of dental modificationevaluatedas a possible local practice, ratherthan as having occurredamong Africans broughtto the Americas subsequent to the modificationof their teeth. Prior to the 1970s, no North American skeletal researchersconsidered the sociocultural context of African diasporic skeletons. In 1974, two skeletons were found at site 2-AVI-l-ENS-1 at Hull Bay, St. Thomas, which Smithsonianphysical and forensic anthropologistsassessed to be "Negroid"(Ubelaker& Angel 1976). SkeletonB was associatedwith coffin nails andthereforereasonablyof the colonial period.But skeletonA was definitely associatedwith an indigenouspotteryfragment(Elenoidperiod,dated800-1200) andno colonial artifacts.Radiocarbon datingonly resolvedthatthe skeletonswere not recent, which was important for the forensic concernsof the investigation.In this example of anotheraccidentalbioarchaeologicalencounterwith an African skeleton, the racing, age, sex, and staturemethodology continues to be important for forensic identification,yet the furtherassessmentof pathology (skeleton A showed a slight infection, whereas skeleton B evinced extensive infection and partlyhealed fractures)marksa more modernapproachthan found in the earlier St. Thomas study 36 years prior to it. None of the Smithsonianforensic examinations attemptsto explore the population,history,or social condition of AfroCaribbean people. In 1976, anotherSmithsonianpublicationby Angel examined secular changes between colonial and moder American skeletons. The study compared82

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archeologicalskeletons(1675-1879) with 182 modem forensicanddonatedskeletons. Angel anticipated increased body size in both European-American and African-American populationsowing to increasedgeneticheterosisand"improvements in disease-control,diet, and living conditions"(p. 727). It is a traditional study in its reliance on physical anthropologicaland anatomicalliterature,early The study showed remilitarydata on stature,and evolutionaryinterpretations. little skeletalchange,albeitgreaterin theblackpopulation thanin whites. markably Life expectancydoes increase,as does a pelvic indicatorof nutritionaladequacy, whereas poorerdental health and the increasedfrequencyof traumaticfractures were seen to reflect modem stresses. The increasedinterestin the biological effects of socioeconomicenvironment duringthe 1970s is certainlysuggestedby the Angel paper,despite his continuingrelianceon the use of evolutionaryprinciples. With Angel, the Smithsonianhad takena significantstep forwardfrom an earlier with the racialevolutionof "OldAmerican"white (Hrdlicka1925) preoccupation or "full-bloodNegro"(Hrdlicka1927) craniain U.S. history.Still, therewas scant use of social historyand culture. In 1977, the skeletons of two enslaved African-American men (burial3 was 30-40 years of age and burial5 was 40-45 years of age) of circa 1800 were reported from a 3000-year-old burial mound on St. CatherinesIsland of the Sea Islands off the Georgiacoast. These skeletons, too, were found accidentallyduring a long-termstudyof the island'snativearchaeologyby the AmericanMuseum of NaturalHistory.The analysis (Thomaset al 1977) was, however,less forensic and more pertinentto historicalinterpretation thanwere the Smithsonianstudies. Racial identificationwas made, as in the otherstudies, along with a modem paleopathologicalassessment.One man (burial3) had a recentlyfractured leg thathad become infected,which probablyled to his death.The other"wasprobablyshot to deathby a military-type weapon"(p. 417). Both men showedevidence of arduous laborby virtueof theirrobustness.David HurstThomas,an archaeologist,andhis associates also encounteredthe fancy burialof the slaveholder'sson in a separate location, showing him to be physically young, gracile, and lacking in evidence of hardwork (Thomaset al 1977). His evidence of childhoodillness andpoor dental health were similarto the African-American skeletons.These comparisonswere used to examine the relative quality of life and condition of the two plantation groups,bringingto bearboth writtenand oral historicalsources.The researchers had no answer for why burials 3 and 5 had been made in a much older Native Americanburialmound. The study involved an inadequatenumberof burialsfor statisticalgeneralizations and only a rudimentary historicaland culturalanalysis. But this study does engage such an analysis and is advancedover the previousaccidentalstudies by These suggestingnew motivationsin additionto its use of the new paleopathology. authorswere examiningpeople, not a race, and probingthe conditionsof slavery. the remains,ratherthancuratethem, and made recommendations They reinterred about historic burialsites that regardboth public sensibilities and scientific concers for improvedrigor and culturalinterpretation:

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We do not, of course, advocatewholesale archaeologicalinvestigationof historic graveyards.Prevalentsocial and religious customs are to be respected in mattersof this sort. But we do urge that as graveyardsare requiredto be moved to make way for progress, archaeologicalmitigation should include adequateresearchdesigns to raise some of the germanequestions regarding past humanbehaviorand belief systems ... (Thomaset al 1977, p. 418). These meagerexamplesappearto be the only Africandiasporicbioarchaeological studies publishedpriorto 1978, when sample sizes and geographicalranges would increase,historicalandculturalinterpretation wouldbecome more sophistiof this sort"wouldbeginto overwhelm cated,and"customs... respectedin matters bioarchaeology.What would be responsiblefor these dramaticchanges?

GROWTHFACTORS
The emergence of an active researchinterestin African-American sites required thatmajorchanges take place, which they did underthe NationalHistoricPreservation Act of 1966. This Act requiredthe funding of archaeological work to mitigate the effects of all federal constructionprojects, including buildings and highways, in order to preserve cultural heritage. These Cultural Resources Management(CRM) projects caused the growth of privatearchaeologicalconsulting firms, which would quickly become the main source of archaeological employmentin the UnitedStates.CRMalso meantthatcontractfundingwas available for site excavationand descriptivereportingfor sites that were encountered accidentally.Road and buildingprojectsproduceda randomsample of U.S. sites and thereforeregularlyencounteredAfrican-American cemeteries.If one simply wantedto keep the revenueof a CRM firmgoing, one would take the opportunity to acquirea contractfor the excavationof the African-American sites that were Here was a of but it was also an opporpoppingup everywhere. target opportunity, for the of African-American and historical tunity launching archaeology,which to reveal the basis" of U.S. national mightbegin "partly mythical identity(Schuyler 1976). The first work on a plantationsite, the Kingsley Plantationin Florida,was excavatedby Fairbanks in 1967. Against the grainof the "new archaeology," which natural Fairbanks took a more historical emphasized ecological determinants, apwas not bowing proach. According to Ferguson (1992, p. xxxviii), "Fairbanks to professionalpressureor pleas for a new and more objective archaeology;he was addressingblack demandsfor more attentivenessto black history,and without that political pressureAfrican-American archaeologywould have developed muchmore slowly, if at all." I agree with Fergusonthatthis new specialtyresulted from a combinationof "the structureof the law, together with the pressure of black political and social protest."But this did not mean that the archaeological communityrespectedblacks' intelligence.

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BLAKEY Althoughsustainedblackprotesthad createdboth an interestin andmarketfor black history,archaeologists(and bioarchaeologists)showed little or no interest in the huge corpus of scholarshipon this subject that African Americansthemhadshown selves hadgenerated(less even thanwhite sociocultural anthropologists in the not take courses did duringthe days of legal segregation!).Archaeologists the that were studies departments African-American multiplyingduring periodof reshift took the the 1970s-1990s, when place. These departments archaeological most of whites. Nor did to the universityeducation mainedmarginal archaeologists excavatingblack sites collaboratewith AfricanAmericanists,most of whom were black, who had the most extensive knowledge of African Diasporic history and in the Associationfor AfricanAmerican culture.Nor did archaeologists participate Life and History,or any otherscholarlyassociationsAfricanAmericanshad long establishedfor the purposesthatarchaeologywas just beginningto serve. This lack of regardfor the intellectualfundamentalsof the subject to which archaeologistswere now shifting would continue to produce importantlimiting studies.Notably, effects on African-American archaeologyandAfrican-American and Theresa Singleton(Smithsonian SyracuseUniversity) archaeologist plantation studies specialistRonaldBailey (Northeastern and African-American University) organizeda week-long meeting at the University of Mississippi in 1989, which had as a goal to bring practitionersof both fields together in dialogue. It is not thatthe only black PhD archaeologistworkingon plansociologically surprising tation sites, Singleton, would be the one to notice that somethingwas wrong and studies and archaeologytogetherto talk. try to bringAfrican-American In anextensivereview,Singleton& Bograd(1995) foundthatAfrican-American regionalandindustrial archaeologyhadexpandedsince the 1960s to includegreater and race of issues address acculturation, to of southern ethnicity, sites, diversity revealed that also exhaustive their But resistance and survey 23). (p. inequities, most of the literature"is largely descriptive, it relies too heavily upon flawed analytical techniques or very narrowperceptions of ethnicity, and it has been slow to incorporateAfrican-American perspectivesin developing this research" of plantationlife or defines the in discussions race "That 30). predominates (p. presentationof blacks' lives following emancipationmay in part reflect white with race. Thereis a tendency archaeologists'and white America'spreoccupation to presumethatrace, or ethnicity,is significant,which is not to say thatrace is not arenot always the same Ratherit is to assertthatwhite preoccupations important. as black preoccupations" (p. 31). The reviewerssuggestthatthe superiordirection is to considerethnicityas a "process"that is being achievedby some researchers both foisted on and creativelyutilized by African Americans,ratherthan as the of 'the other,"'consisting of static typologies thatidenwidespread"archaeology tify a groupwith objects.In most cases, the absenceof type objectscomes to constiandassimilationwhenotherplausibleinterpretations tuteevidenceof acculturation to both is tethered exist (see Schuyler1980). I suspectthatthistypologicalapproach the American"mythof the Negro past"and Herskovits'searchfor Africanisms. Accordingto Singleton& Bograd(1995), "[t]hetenorof manyethnicitystudiesis

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problematic.One problemis thatthey tend to take a perspectivefrom the outside, how archaeologistsand others define ethnics or culturalgroups, ratherthan how ethnics define themselves" (pp. 23-24). Similar issues were raised for African archaeology(Andah 1995). The ability to define anotherpeople has been a major means and measure of social control, with or without archaeology.It is against such disempowerment thatdiasporanscholarshad been writing. The Euro-Americanarchaeologists and bioarchaeologistsof the 1970s and 1980s were influencedby the new historiography of plantationlife that had also been fostered by the social changes of the 1960s. The Black Consciousness and Black Studies movements (Drake 1993) had succeeded steadily in producinga marketfor history books and lectures, while the Civil Rights movementhad created an openness to interestin blacks and Americanracism.The historicalworks of Jordan(1968) and Genovese (1972) followed the peculiarlyearly work of the interest left-leaningAptheker(1943) as examples of an emergingEuro-American in African-American thatexplainedthe originsof Americanracism historiography andthe conditionof blacks.A historicalanddemographic studyby Gutman(1976) opposedthe influentialreportby SenatorDaniel Moynihan(1965). Moynihanhad attributed urbanblack poverty to the legacy of a dysfunctionalslave family and Africanmatriarchy, which Gutmanshowedto havelittle historicalbasis. But it was & Fogel Engerman'seconomics treatise,Timeon the Cross (1974), that stirreda major debate about whether or not working class whites were as oppressed as enslaved blacks, who they claimed were adequatelynourished.Like Moynihan, raisedthe specterof apology when blacks were Fogel & Engerman(1974) further found to have been worse off in many respects afterthe Reconstruction thanduring slavery.The critiquesof this work by Gutman(1975) and David et al (1976) were devastatingto it. This criticalhistoriography drewon the priorworkof black scholars.Add to these the work by Curtin(1969), which estimatedthe death toll of the "middlepassage"in the millions (millions morethanmost whites wantedto acknowledgeand millions fewer thanestimatedby some black scholars)as major historicalgrist for the mill of scholarlyand politicized debate. Physical anthropologists began to pick up on the data about the demography, and health of enslaved African Americans that were being generated nutrition, to test these various questions regardingthe quality of life among the enslaved. Curtin'swork and the body of work by Steckel on problemsof nutrition,disease, and mortalityon plantations(1986) followed work by Stamp (1956) in showing the dire demographicandhealthconsequencesof Americanslavery.Higman'sextensive Trinidadian dataon the demographyof the slave tradeeven found its way to the AmericanJournalof Physical Anthropology (1979). Apologetic theoriesby & and Savitt (1981) Kiple King (1978) attributingslavery and racism to black genetic immunitiesto disease also resonatedwith the evolutionarybent of physical anthropologists. The biological data generatedby these biohistoricaldebates interestedphysical anthropologists, who were poised to enterthe discussion with the bones and teeth of the enslaved people themselves. Yet Rankin-Hill(1997) seems correctin saying that "littlehas been accomplished[by the historiansand

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In fact, muchof the economists]in expandingthe conceptuallimits of [biohistory]. and and datamanipulation, emphasishas been on the intricaciesof quantification not on differentapproachesto interpreting and/orexaminingthe data generated" (p. 12). The essentialresearchquestionbehindall these studieswas, did whites do bad towardblacks during slavery that caused their current anythingparticularly condition? This I believe is the stage on which the nascent bioarchaeologyof the 1980s was set. Political events spurreda broadersocietal interestin blacks. A marketvenues opened for research and publicationsin place and government-funding African-Americanarchaeology in particularand historical archaeology in general. And a biohistoricalliteraturecame to prominencethat spoke to biological who had seized on epidemiologicalanddemographic approaches. anthropologists, Racial biological studies had lost vitality for researchafter the Nazi era had ended, apartfrom forensics at least. Physical anthropologistswere looking for new ways of applyingtheir methods to societal issues (Blakey 1996, Armelagos & Goodman 1998). Bioculturalapproachesthat sought to use biological stress indicatorsas evidence of social inequality and change began to emerge during the 1970s (see Goodman & Leatherman1998, Blakey 1998b). The data of the biohistorians,if appliedto bioarchaeologicalcontexts, were ideal for biocultural studies. The students of paleopathologistGeorge Armelagos and others at the University of Massachusettsin the forefrontof bioculturalanthropologyhad a bioarchaeology. impacton the evolving shape of African-American particular sweep of successful efforts by Native Americansin Finally,the hurricane-like the 1980s to control the disposition of their skeletal remains and sacred objects culminatedin NAGPRA legislation in 1990 (Thomas2000). The writing was on were losing access to a majorsource the wall. Americanphysical anthropologists Native American bioarchaeologicalresearch.The of professional reproduction: field of African-American bioarchaeologywas an open niche.

THE BIRTH OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN BIOARCHAEOLOGY

researchamongphysIn 1985 therewas a sufficientamountof African-American for Ted Rathbun(Universityof South Carolina)and Jerome ical anthropologists Rose (Universityof Arkansas)to organizethe firstsymposiumon "Afro-American Biohistory:The PhysicalEvidence"at the AnnualMeetingof the AmericanAssoReferenceto blacks at these meetingsin such ciation of PhysicalAnthropologists. ethnic and historical,ratherthan racial, terms was novel itself. The symposium was publishedas a special issue of the AmericanJournal of Physical Anthropology, in 1987, with one paper(Blakey 1988) routedto a laterissue of the journal. Rose coauthoredthe histological study of the CedarGrove Cemeterysite (Rose 1985, Martinet al 1987) with Debra Martinand Ann Magennis. This may have been the firstAfrican-American cemeterycoveredby the NationalHistoricPreservation Act, which had initially appliedonly to the site's Indiancomponent.This black Arkansaspopulationwas shown by all indicationsto post-Reconstruction

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have been highly stressed(Rose 1985). The work regime for these freed and free men andwomen"hadnot changedsince slavery"andthe "generalqualityof life for southwestArkansasBlacks had deteriorated significantlysince emancipationdue to the fall of cottonprices andlegalizeddiscrimination" (p. v). This was a directre(1974). The recentstudyof the Freedman's sponseto Fogel & Engerman Cemetery of Dallas, Texas examines Reconstructionand post-Reconstruction bioarchaeology in greaterhistoricaldepth (Peteret al 2000). Also included in the 1985 symposium were bioarchaeologicalstudies of a South Carolinaplantationnear Charlestonshowing evidence of malnutrition and disease in a sample of 27 individualswho died between 1840 and 1870 (Rathbun 1987). Dental and skeletal growth disruptionwas found to be highest for male children, 80% of whom had evidence of anemia and infection. Most men and women had evinced bone reactionsto infection, with relativelyhigh exposure to lead and strontiumconcentrations,indicative of a diet high in plant foods. No clear evidence of syphilis was found (Rathbun1987). The studycontainsa useful review of the biohistoricaland archaeologicalliterature,again showing the close connection to debates in history and archaeologyat that time (also see Rathbun and Scurry 1991). The site was being removed because of the developmentof privateland, where the law did not requiremitigation.The researchteam was able to convince the landownerto allow researchpriorto reburial. The demographyand pathology of individualsfrom the eighteenth-and early St. Peter Street cemetery in New Orleans give evidence of nineteenth-century arduouslaboramongyoungermales, andcomparatively less suchevidence among females and older adults as house servants(Owsley et al 1987). many interpreted Censusdatais given on variationin mortalityby occupationin eighteenth-century New Orleans.The furtherracial analysis of this study,attributing lower life spans to "racialadmixture," with the of dearth social and historical along analysis,shows with older racial traditions the forensic of the influences continuity preservedby of Tennessee on this University study. A subsequentstudy by Owsley and colleagues (1990) comparesthe 149 black and white skeletons from Cypress Grove Cemetery (1849-1929) of Charity Hospitalof New Orleanswith other sites. This site, too, resultedfrom the legally requiredmitigationof a federalhighwayproject.Similaritieswere found with the St. PeterStreetcemeteryas well as with the infectionratesof a pauper'scemetery used by whites in New York state. The extensive evidence of cut bone showed that blacks and whites who died at Charityoften were dissected prior to burial. As is consistent with the forensic approachoften used in CRM bioarchaeology, the extensive dataare descriptiveand not integratedwith communityhistory.The accompanyingvolume prepared by archaeologistsprovideshistoricaldescription (Beaverset al 1993), which deals mainly with the city healthand medical context of the Hospital. Several biohistoricalstudies in an anthropological vein were also presentedat the Afro-AmericanBiohistory Symposium.Hutchinson(1987), an anthropological geneticist using HarrisCounty,Texas, slave schedules of 1850 and 1860 (and a crediblerangeof biohistoricalliterature), explainsits markedpopulationgrowth

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BLAKEY as a functionof importation increase.She shows thatenslaved despitelittle natural persons who were recordedas "black"tendedto be older (higherlife expectancy on small farmsthan on large farms),while those termedmulattoeswere on average olderthanblackson largeplantations, possibly due to mulattohouse servitude on large plantationswhere black field hands were exposed to the worst conditions. Alternatively, hypothesizedimmunitiesto yellow fever (a la Kiple & King to differencesin life expectancybetweenblacks and 1981) mighthave contributed mulattoes(Hutchinson1987). tendenciesof Also combiningthe traditional evolutionaryandbiodeterministic the field with a new bioculturalismis the work of Wienker (1987) on an early twentieth-century logging companytown in Arizona. Pointing to the health care for inadequacies blacks in a town deeply segregated,the studytakes greatinterest in the possibility that dark pigmentationmight have deleterious effects in the temperateArizonahighlands. A clearer break toward a nonbiodeterministic view, as seen in Rose (1985), Martinet al (1987), and Rathbun(1987), is also found in the symposiumpaper by Blakey (1988). This papertracesethnogenesis and demographicchange in an Afro-Native Americanethnic group (Nanticoke-Moors)in ruralDelaware from the colonial perioduntil 1950. The studyuses a politicaleconomic analysisof 406 data,andoralhistory.It proposesthatcommunityrecemeteryheadstones,archival and to racial industrialization broughtabouta single community's sponses policies constructed races. Althoughgenetically siminto different socially segmentation educational and economic options, different Nanticoke-Moors ilar, experienced were the increasedisothe their "racial" affiliations. results on Among depending for the maintenance of Indianidentity,with increasinglyhigherlife lationrequired kin thanamong AfricanAmerican-identified expectancyamongthe industrializing a farmingeconomy.Notably,this studytook Indian-identified kin who maintained little accountof the biohistoricaldebates [thoughit utilizes Eblen (1979)] and reon African-American/Native literature lates insteadto historicalandethnographic Americanrelationsin the easternseaboardregion. During the mid-1980s, a majorcollaborationbetween the SmithsonianInstitution and John Milner Associates (a contract archaeology concern) also contributedto the Afro-AmericanBiohistory Symposium.The First African Baptist Church(FABC) cemetery in downtown Philadelphiahad been used mostly by free African Americans between 1823 and 1841. In the path of subway expansion, archaeologicalmitigation was requiredfor the site. John Milner Associates excavated 140 skeletons, a far largerAfrican-Americanarchaeological populationthan from any previous African-Americansite. The FABC was also unique as a northernblack bioarchaeologicalsite, and rare as an urbanone (the St. PeterStreetcemeteryin New Orleanswas the otherurbanexception).The fact that it was in the hands of J. LawrenceAngel, a preeminentphysical anthropolobioarchaeology,as gist at the Smithsonian,raisedthe statusof African-American surelyas did the Rathbun-Rose symposiumitself. Angel, who had firstestablished his reputation on the paleopathologyof ancientGreece,had turnedto the study of

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secular change in the Europeanand African-Americanskeleton from the colonial periodto the present(Angel 1976). Along with his assistant,JenniferKelley, and the principalarchaeologist,Michael Parrington, and with the collaborationof andcompleted Lesley Rankin-HillandMichaelBlakey (who togethercoordinated the projectfollowing Angel's death),Angel availedthe collection to a loose team of researchers while conductingcore researchhimself. The populationappearedto be stressedby inadequatenutrition,arduouslabor, pregnancyand childbearing,unsanitaryconditions, limited exposure to the sun, and extensive exposure to infectious diseases. Nutritionaland growth indicators showed conditionsthat were little betterthan for enslaved blacks of the Catoctin IronWorksof Maryland,1790-1820, althoughevidence of arthritis andviolencerelated fractureswas rarerat the Philadelphiasite (Angel et al 1987). The hunt for genetic traitspersisted, as per the traditionof physical anthropology,so that the observationof 30% of individualswith os acromiale (nonunionof partof the shoulderjoint) was interpreted as a familial trait,when it might have been evaluated as the result of persistentmechanical,labor-induced stressduringadolescent development(Rankin-Hill1997, p. 152). The comparativeanalysis of Angel & Kelley (1987) was furtherdeveloped in a second symposium paper (Kelley & Angel 1987), for which they had assembled 120 colonial African and African-Americanskeletons from 25 sites in (Catoctin),Virginia,andthe Carolinas,as well as forensiccases fromthe Maryland Smithsonian'scollections. As in the other studies, nutritionalstresses were evident in the skeleton, including anemia (which these authorsoverly attributeto sicklemia). Adolescents and many adults(male and female) showed exaggerated developmentof lifting muscles (deltoid and pectoral crests of the humeri) and early degenerationof the vertebralcolumn and shoulder.Evidence of traumato the skull as well as "parry" fracturesof the lower arm suggest an unusuallyhigh incidence of accidents and violence at CatoctinFurnace,particularly. The use of historicalreferencesis rudimentary. The First African Baptist Church skeletons were reburied in Eden Cemetery, Philadelphia,by the moder congregationin 1987. At a time when Native Americans were calling for reburialof 18,000 remains at the Smithsonian,the Institution'sinitial interest in announcingthe FABC ceremony was administratively quashed. The impressions of African Americans regardingthis research were mixed. Four years later, the New York community would explode over a similarproject. John Milner Associates continued to develop the preliminary work of and elaborationsof the foundationstudy done with Angel (Parrington Parrington & Roberts1984, 1990). Blakey and associatesof Howard'sCobbLaboratory published articleson childhoodmalnutrition anddisease baseduponanalysesof dental developmentaldisruption(enamel hypoplasia) (Blakey et al 1992, 1994, 1997). The dental defects in the FABC populationwere at frequencies similar to those found in the Marylandand VirginiapopulationsAngel had compared,pointingto a degree of childhood malnutrition and disease in the recently free north similar

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BLAKEY to that in the plantationsouth (Blakey et al 1994). Hypoplasiafrequencieswere between 70% and 100%,which were amongthe highest in any humanpopulation studiedby anthropologists. of AfricanRankin-Hill (1997) publishedthe firstbookthatsynthesizeda breadth of the American bioarchaeologicaland biohistoricaldata for the interpretation FABC. Rankin-Hill'sextensive treatmentof modem paleopathologicaland demographicmethods and the use of general and site-specific historical sources is extensive. She presents the most developed theoreticalformulationfor AfricanAmericanbioarchaeology,which includes the political and economic factors interactingwith the physiology andhealthof earlyAfricanAmericans.Too comprehensive to be adequatelysummarizedhere, she examines the multiple stressors, culturalbuffers, and skeletal effects of physiological stress in the lives of Philadelphialaborersand domestic workers. The influence of the University of Massachusettsis tangible, as the graduate institutionof Rose, Martin,Magennis,Rankin-Hill,and Blakey. It can be distinguished from the other centers of the developmentof this specialty (along with South Carolina)by its unabashedadvocacy and developmentof bioculturalthe(1998) andRankin-Hill(1997)]. ory [fully developedby Goodman& Leatherman the from models were biocultural synthesis of the humanadaptdeveloped Early Brooke the biocultural of R. interests Thomas, paleopathologyof George ability of Alan Swedlund and historical the duringthe late 1970s demography Armelagos, and 1980s at Massachusetts.These models were honed and evolved by their studentsto incorporate politicalandeconomic factorsthatwouldexpose thebiological cultural effects of oppression.The influencesof left-leaningfacultyin archaeology, African-American Studies of Economics and and the Departments anthropology, influencedthe physical anthropologists,all of whom were exchanging information at a time when walls were being erectedbetweensubdisciplinesat manyother departments. anthropology The involvementof African Americanswas also unusualat the Universityof Massachusetts,which included one faculty member (JohnnettaCole), a thirdof studentsin UnitedStates(Rankin-Hill& Blakey), the blackphysicalanthropology andthe only blackpaleopathologists duringthis crucialperiod.African-American into the traditionsof critical,activist,and humanisticscholarshipwere introduced 1970s and of the 1960s The motivations discourse. early progressive departmental as was the abysmalrecordof physicalanthrowere freshin mindat Massachusetts, pology regardingrace. Researchon the political historyof physical anthropology was exceptionallyactive there, and the emphasiswas on the developmentof new theory. The SmithsonianInstitutionand the Universityof Tennessee were steeped in the racial tradition,commonly reinforcedby theiremphasison forensic work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation,police departments,and the court system. at Tennesee,William Bass, trained In fact, the prominentforensic anthropologist most of the leading skeletal biologists at the Smithsonian(excepting Stewartand Angel, who were of an earlier generationbut nonetheless forensic in orientaTennessee,hadno black studentsof physical institution, tion). The degree-granting

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A technicalemphasison humanidentification anthropology. grewin isolationfrom social, cultural,and political theorythere. The dichotomyof bioculturalvs forensic approaches of paleopathologyis well appreciatedamong practitionerstoday. The distinct marks made by each trajectory on African-American bioarchaeologyshould become more evident. The clashesbetweenbiocultural andforensicapproaches thatoccurred duringthe 1990s (Goodman& Armelagos 1998), highlightedby the African Burial Groundphenomenon in New YorkCity, are understandable from this vantage(see Epperson 1999, La Roche & Blakey 1997). Some very interesting diasporic bioarchaeology was also conducted by researchersoutsidethe United Statesby the end of the 1980s. The most sophisticated (moreso thanmost U.S. studies)is the workof MohamadKhudabux (1989, 1991), sponsoredby the Universitiesof Surinam,Kuwait,andLeiden.These studiesrefer discussed above, and to extensively to much of the recent U.S. skeletal literature Higman's (1979) archivaldata on staturesof differentAfrican ethnic groups enslaved in the Caribbean. The studyof the 38 Africanskeletalremains(57 burials) of the WaterlooPlantation(1793-1861) in costal Surinamis strikingfor its combinationof modem paleopathologicalmethods (from the Workshopof European Anthropologists),use of historical documents, and political economic analysis. The overarchingquestion of the study is whetherthe skeletal data would confirm the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century chronicles pointing to poorer health and of life the enslaved Africans of the Caribbean thanamong those of quality among the United States.The datagenerallydo so confirm,but the detailedanalysisis all the more interesting. The higher life expectancythan at sugarplantationswas attributed to the less extremearduousnessof cotton work. The study makes staturalcomparisonswith Caribbeanand North American sites, with a considerationof the influences of both genetics and diet. Uniquely,the Surinamstudydescribesvariationin African culturalorigins duringthe course of the trade,includingEwe-, Fon-, Yoruba-,and Akan-speakingsocieties, and thus gives a culturaltextureto bioarchaeologythat racial assessmentotherwiseobscures. This study's evidence demonstratesthe skeletal effects of heavy work, poor researchon NorthAmerica. housing, andpoornutrition,as does the contemporary A definitepatternfor Surinam,which the authorseffectively generalizeto muchof the Caribbean of womenon Surinam duringthe activetrade,is the smallproportion At there were twice the numberof skeletons plantations. Waterloo, approximately of enslaved men as of enslaved women, and historicaldocumentsshowed a less extreme but consistently low sex ratio for Surinamas a whole. They show the clearestpossible evidence of syphilis in 27% of the population(with vault stellate lesions). Skeletal manifestationsat this level point to a majority(possibly all) of the populationbeing infectedby treponema, most of which appearsto be syphilis. What stands above most U.S. observationsof this colonial disease in blacks is the incorporationof a dynamic historical context. Documentationshows that to Africansby the frequentrapeand"abuseof women"on syphilis was introduced slaving ships, and the widespreadconcubinageof female house servants,which

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BLAKEY spreadcontagion.Since the sex ratio was so low, as was a woman'scontrolof her own body,it is clearlyimpliedthatEuropean andAfricanmales wouldhave shared women.Khudabux andhis associates(1989, 1991) showthatwhenthe transatlantic trade was outlawed and Surinamneeded to foster fertility among the Africans enslaved there, the ravages of syphilis had become so great that it would be a long time before its populationcould grow, which ironicallyhinderedSurinam's economic development. U.S. anthropologistswere also examining Caribbeanbioarchaeologicaldata duringthe late 1980s and 1990s. The historicalarchaeologicalreportof Handler & Lange (1978) spurredmany subsequentskeletal studies of Newton Plantation in Barbados.Since the archaeologicalexcavationof the skeletonshad been more convenientthan systematic,skulls comprisedthe bulk of the collection and dental studies were emphasized.These studies revealedhigh frequenciesof enamel hypoplasia, indicating high nutritionaland disease stresses in early childhood (Corrucciniet al 1985). Their findings included three individuals with Moon's molars and Hutchinson'sincisors, which they extrapolated to a 10%syphilis rate for the living plantationpopulation(Jacobiet al 1992). Studies of trace elements showed very high lead contents, which suggested a high intake of rum distilled in leaded pipes (Corrucciniet al 1987b; also see Aufderheideet al 1985 on lead in African American skeletal populations).They also show dental modification ("toothmutilation"),high frequencies of tooth root hypercementosisassociated with chronic malnutrition and periodic, seasonal rehabilitation(Corrucciniet al and childhood et al 1982). 1987a), high mortality(Jacobiet al 1992, Corruccini Undertakenby Handler,a culturaland historical anthropologist,one finds a strongerhistoricalbent in these studies. Yet the work of the physical anthropologists discussed above is modestly integratedwith the more culturaland historical workreported in specializedarticles.Site reportscan overcomethis segmentation. An exampleof a betterintegrated, small studyis foundin Armstrong & Fleischman who evaluated four African skeletons from the Seville Plantation, Jamaica, (1993), combiningpaleopathology, history,and archaeologicalanalysis.The elegant simplicity of these house burials (showing culturalcontinuity between the Asante, plantationlaborers, and Maroons) and their symbolic goods accentuates their evocative individual biological characterizations, but the sample is inadequate for populationalanalysis. A good example of the forensic approachis also shown in the Caribbean. The Site Slave on land in was Montserrat, Harney Cemetery, private being destroyed by swimming pool constructionwhen archaeologistDavid Wattersobtainedthe owner's cooperationin salvaging some of the skeletal remains.The site was so much disturbedthat artifactscould not be establishedas grave goods, although a few pottery sherds were found, including importedand "Afro-Montserratian" oriunglazedwares.As at Newton Plantation,graveswere in west-east/head-foot entation(Watters & Peterson1991). Theremainsof 17 "blackslaves"foundduring construction(only 10 of which were in situ burials)were sent to the Universityof Tennesseefor study (Mannet al 1987). Degenerativejoint disease was moderate

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and relatedmainly to aging. The authorspoint to a "harshlifestyle" with periodic severe malnutrition and common illnesses, leading to early death (see also Jones et al 1990 on the Galways Plantationburialsin Montserrat). The lack of local historicalcontext is striking.West Indies shippingdata from one historicalsource is mentionedalong with two comparisonswith the Newton Plantationskeletal study. The remainingliteratureis solely forensic or skeletal biological.Thereis no discussionof the conditionsof life on the BransbyPlantation as a whole), wherethe interred hadpreviouslylived andworked. (or of Montserrat The repeatedreferencesto theirstudyof the "Negroidtraits"of the "blackslaves" & Peterson1991) showedan irritating (Mannet al 1987;see also Watters continuity withthe Smithsonian-Tennessee studiesin which"racial" identification substituted for the constructionof a humanculturaland historicalidentity.

THE NEW YORKAFRICANBURIAL GROUNDPHENOMENON

By the 1990s, two tendencies of African diasporicbioarchaeologyhad become well-defined.The bioculturalapproach combines culturaland social historicalinformationwith the demographyand epidemiology of archaeologicalpopulations to verify, augment,or critiquethe socioeconomic conditionsand processes experiencedby past humancommunities.In its most derivedform, political economic of data that are also critically and publicly theory structuresthe interpretation evaluated.The forensic approachuses the descriptivevariables favored by police departments for individualidentifications(race, sex, age, and stature)along with pathologyassessmentsin orderto describethe biologicalconditionof persons buriedin archaeologicalsites. Althoughthe majorityof the technicalobservations, and assessmentsof the skeletonare the same for both approaches, measurements, the differ in extent to which forensics evaluates biology descriptivelyand they without racially, relying on (or constructing)social, cultural,and historicalinformationthatis required of biocultural The resultof forensicworkis the approaches. constructionof an aculturaland ahistoricalgroupof individualsby attendingto a positivistic scientismthatviews the discountingof cultureas equalingobjectivity (see Armelagos& Goodman1998, Blakey 1998b). The resultof bioculturalwork is a biological reflectionof the social historyof a communityof people articulated with broadpolitical-economicforces (see Goodman& Leatherman1998). Given thatwe are dealing with only the past few centuriesof history,the choice of either of the events thatshape approach changes ourcurrentidentitiesandunderstanding us today. The rediscoveryandexcavationof the AfricanBurialGroundin New YorkCity between 1991 and 1992 duringfederal building constructionbroughtthe differences betweenthese approaches emphaticallyto a head.A bioculturalandAfrican Diasporic researchprogramtook over the analysis of the skeletal remainsexcavatedby forensic anthropologists andcontractarchaeologists(Cook 1992), whose

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BLAKEY knowledgeof the AfricanDiasporawas meager.The site, datingbetween the late 1600s and 1794, from which 408 skeletons were removed,would laterbe recognized as the earliestandlargestAmericancolonialpopulationof anykindavailable for study.The cemeterybecame a source of deep public interestand concern,especially amongAfricanAmericans,who protestedand held massive prayervigils "descenat the site duringexcavation.The effortsmainlyof the African-American dant community"successfully nominatedthe site a National Historic Landmark and broughtits dispositionundertheir influencewith the help of mainly AfricanAmericanlegislators.The U.S. GeneralServices Administration (GSA) responsible for the site persisted unsuccessfully to oppose African-Americancontrol, extensive bioculturalresearch,and the law (Harrington 1993, La Roche & Blakey ceme1997). There had not been such public outcry about an African-American the York African Burial Ground since the "doctor's riots" at New tery'sdesecration andits adjacent pauper'sfield in 1788. And neverbeforehadthe African-American taken such an interestin theirbioarchaeology. public The forensicanthropologists' emphasison racialtraits,theirobvious ignorance of the studypopulation'scultureandhistory,andtheircooperationwith the federal governments'effortsto fend off AfricanAmericans'involvementwere responded to with deepening repugnanceby many of the black people who witnessed the excavation.Researchersat the W. MontagueCobb Biological AnthropologyLaboratory at Howard, along with collaboratorsfrom eight other universities and contractfirms, would take over all postexcavationresearchwith the backing of the descendantcommunity.The fact that the research was conducted within a clientagebroughtthe tradition universityandwith an African-American diasporan of AfricanDiasoporanscholarshipsquarelyinto the core of the researchprogram. within HowardUniThe availabilityof diasporaexpertisein variousdepartments in the the History Department),along with diasporaprogram versity (especially resourcesin anthropology, the imbalanceof the University'sresearchvs curricular diverse humandimensionsof to reveal the the use of manydisciplines encouraged were compatiblewith the biocultural the researchproblem.These characteristics The project'sdirectorhad been workingwith indigenouspeople's orgaapproach. the nizations, WorldArchaeologicalCongress,andthe AmericanAnthropological and Association for several years on the ethics and epistemology of repatriation public engagement. Combiningthese influences, the African Burial GroundProject formed as a biocultural,diasporic, interdisciplinary project that utilized critical theory and activist scholarship/public engagement. The researchdesign called for the full in skeletalrecordation[using the manuscript of methods the latest by Haas range (1994), then in preparation],molecular genetics, and chemical isotope studies. and NorthAmericawere involved among Specialistsfrom Africa, the Caribbean, in orderto capturethe effects of those areasin which the the 25 PhD researchers dead Africans of the Burial Groundhad spent portionsof their lives, just as the diversedisciplines(fromarthistoryto chemistry)would captureandrevealhuman complexity in the recountedlives of those buried.The public would review and

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haveinputintothe researchdesign (HowardUniversityandJohnMilnerAssociates 1993), and a federal advisory(steering)committeeconsisting mainly of AfricanAmericanactivistsandculturalworkerswould ultimatelyapproveit. The principle researchquestions concernedthe population'sorigins, transformation, quality of life, and resistance to slavery.An Office of Public Educationand Interpretation would be directedby an urbananthropologist,SherrillWilson, which provided a continuous exchange of information,with more than 100,000 lay people and educators. A monument, interpretivecenter, and reburialceremony have been fundedandareplannedforthisunique,iconesquecemeteryandarchaeological site. The African Burial GroundProject's initial findings have been striking.The historically and culturallyinformed craniometricdata (27 individuals) and mitochondrialDNA (40 individuals)identifiedpossible Asante, Benin, Tuareg,Ibo, andSenegambians. Central Africanstateswhose memberswerefrequently Yoruba, capturedandtakento the Americas(Jackson1997) aremissing fromcurrentDNA comparativedatabasesbecause few geneticists had been interestedin the origins of the Africandiaspora(Kittleset al 1999, Jacksonet al 2000; M.E. Mack & M.L. in preparation). The Projectis proceedingin cooperationwith Blakey,manuscript African embassies to fill in missing comparativedata that should allow identification of many West CentralAfrican backgroundsas well (Jacksonet al 2000). Historianshave examinedthe dynamichistoryof the slave tradein Africa and the Caribbean thatroutedthese people to New York(Medfordet al 2000). Archaeologists andhistorianshaveexamineddiverseburialpracticesof these specific,named societies in Africa and among their colonial Americandescendants.The archaeological recordrevealeda modest numberof symbolic Africanartifacts,the most strikingof which may be Akan (Ansa 1995, Perryet al 1999, Holl 2000). Craniometricanalysis of specific populationsratherthanrace also points to the Akanspeakingstates (Shujaa& Keita2000). These artifactsrepresentorigins andresistanceto the dehumanization and ethnocidecarriedout by the colonial English and Dutchas they wrestledfor social controlby attempting to destroythe cultureof the enslaved. Historianshave examinedthe working, dietary,legal, and other conditions to which individualsin the cemeterymight have been exposed in every regionwhere these Africanshad spent a partof theirlives. Uniquely,theirreport(Medfordet al 2000 and in preparation) is a study of the people connectedto many places, not a of the site even of New Yorkslavery.Studies of chemical isotopes or study only arebeing experimentedwith as sourcingdatafor trackingthe geographicalmovements of individualsat differentpoints duringtheirlives, informedby geologists, geneticists, archaeologists,and historians(Goodmanet al 2000). An example of results in reportscurrentlyin preparation bears on fertilityand the lives of women. Since the completionof skeletalrecordation andassessmentin relatedto 1999,it hasbeen shownthatyoungwomenhadparticularly high mortality theirimportation from Africa most who were first "seasoned" men, (unlike directly in the Caribbean)and conditionsin New York.The female majorityamong New YorkAfricans seems to have resulted from a combinationof colonial European

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efforts to stem rebellions against slavery (of which there were two in New York City duringthe cemetery's use, in which the Akan were represented),efforts to reduceprices, and a lesser demandfor the extremestaminarequiredfor Caribbean sugarproduction,for which men were more often selected (Howson et al 2000). These women were exposed to desperateconditions on the ships-cold weather, malnutrition anddisease, hardlabor,andreproductive risks-which were stressing them simultaneously.Mortality was especially high among 15- to 20-year-old andthe subjects females and 15- to 25-year-oldmales,the ages of mostnew arrivals of intensivework regimes. Treponemaldisease (much of which was probablyyaws ratherthan syphilis) was not as prevalentas in the Caribbeanand did not include cases of cloaca and cranial lesions associated with advanced syphilis (lower than in Barbados and dramaticallylower than in Surinam)(Null et al 2000). Skeletal evidence of andmuscle tearswas foundin most men andwomen. enlargedmuscle attachments Severalfracturesof the spine and skull base were associatedwith axial loading of the head, as enslaved Africans would have been burdenedwith heavy loads (Hill et al 1995, Terranova et al 2000). Skeletal demographycombined with colonial census data from New York morelike the Caribbean of low fertility(belowreplacement), pointedto a population than Virginia,despite the fact that, unlike the Caribbean,most were female and venereal disease seemed low (Rankin-Hillet al 2000). Those women who survived, and were sufficiently healthy to reproduce,bore children in a high-risk where 21% of the burialswere infants,likely equatingto a well over environment, of infantbones is considered. 50% infantmortalitywhen differentialpreservation In fact, the Project'smortalitydata from the archivalrecords of TrinityChurch show that the infantsof the enslaver'sclass had far lower mortality,as did 15- to 25-year-olds.Englishwomenandmen lived to old age (55-60+ yearsof age) about five to ten times more often than African men and women, respectively (Blakey et al 2000). Most dead childrenshow evidence of anemia (porotic hyperostosis) anddisease) andinfectiousdisease. Hypoplasia(reflectingchildhoodmalnutrition were significantlymore frequentamong those without dental modificationthan among the 26 individualswhose filed teeth gave evidence suggestive of African childhoods (Mack et al 2000). Duringthis period, when the legal tradewas very active,enslavedAfricanswere workedat the expense of theirfertility,merelyto be efforts to enhancethe domestic reproduction replaced,unlike nineteenth-century for sale of African-American (See Figure 1). people

labor, Figure 1 Burial#315, a womenin her 30s with skeletalevidenceof arduous with an Asante andinfection.Hercrossedarmsareconsistent nutritional inadequacy, andtransition. fullness,neutralization, Photograph completion, practicerepresenting Howard of African Burial Ground the University, Project, by DennisSeckler,courtesy DC. Washington,

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BLAKEY The vivid contrastingof a humanface of slaverywith its dehumanizing conditions I believe accountsfor much of the strongpublic feeling regardingthis work (Blakey 1998a), as it appearsin six documentaryfilms, hundredsof news articles, and scores of radiointerviews.The powerof the most primaryof evidence of the mythology northern slavery,the bones of the people themselves,has overturned of the free northaccordingto introductory textbooks,and the Project'sapproach to public engagementhas helped advancegeneralarchaeologicaltheory(Thomas 1998, p. 551; Pearson 1999, p. 179; Johnson2000, pp. 168-70). The readyaccesto the public for education,cultural sibility of the site and the Cobb Laboratory The simple fact thatthis has been important. programs,and religious observances institution at an African-American researchis conducted deliberatelyseeking to in their own work on behalf of African Americans'interest past, to "tell our own of has story," engenderedfeelings empowerment(Harrington1993). The idea of of Africanoriginshas consistentlybeen of keen public restoringan understanding interestfor the generalredefinitionandpsychosocial well-being of AfricanAmericans, consistent with the long-standinggoals of diasporicscholarshipcultivated within the black world for over a century.For the first time, bioarchaeologyhas been broughtinto that world, with a struggleto do so on that world's own terms. Elsewhere,AfricanAmericanssucceeded in influencingthe historicalinterpretation and educationaluses of Freedman'sCemeterydata in Dallas, while limiting the amountof skeletalresearchto far less thanwas allowed for the AfricanBurial Ground(Peteret al 2000:3-19). interestto African Americansis the ability achieved by this Of extraordinary to establish a databasefor showing affiliationsbetween the DNA project using skeletons and specific African societies (Saheed 1999, Staples 1999). As a result of public interest,the Projectrealizedthatif this could be done with respectto the skeletal remains,the same comparativedatabasemight someday soon allow any living AfricanAmericanto estimatehis or her ancestrywithin a reasonableprobability.The technicalabilityto restoretheknowledgeof lineagesthathadbeen deliberatelyseveredin the attemptto maketheirancestorsinto chattelshouldcontribute to more intimateties between the African Diasporaand the African "homeland," with consequences for foreign relations. The physical evidence comparing the physical qualityof life underslaveryversusAfricansocieties has lead to an emer(CongressionalBlack gent discussion of humanrights,apologies, andreparations Caucas Task Force on the WorldConferenceAgainst Rausm briefingby Blakey 19 June2001; UN HumanRights CommissionbriefingBlakey 1998a) for slavery. Surelythis researchrelatesto the point madeby Singleton& Bograd(1995) about and African-American differencesin Euro-American questionsfor archaeology. In Januaryof 2001 and after several attemptsof legislators and community of agreement,the GSA refused to a memorandum groupsto hold themaccountable to fund the extensive DNA and chemical sourcingstudies.These studieshad been set forthin the researchdesign that the GSA had approvedunderpublic scrutiny in 1994. The years of wrangling with the federal governmentbroughtphysical and archaeologistsinto a politically active campaignas advisors anthropologists on behalf of a descendantcommunity,seeking consistencybetween projectgoals

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and GSA agreements.Thus, as seen in engaged anthropological work concerning the treaties or human rights of living people, a great deal of time and energy are expended apartfrom the actual conduct of researchwhen positions are taken in such a socially significant arena. In this case, the bioarchaeologistsstand in an opposite relationto the culturallyaffiliatedcommunitiesthan do the forensic anthropologistssuing for control of so-called Kennewick Man (Thomas 2000). Despite these differences, the resources and visibility accruing to the African Burial GroundProjectare advantageous.Although the distinctivescope of work in progress is promising, it remainsto be seen what long-termimplicationsthis projectmay have upon completion.

CONCLUSIONS
Bioculturalapproachesare amenableto the kinds of broadinterdisciplinary syntheses, diasporicscope, critique,and public engagementthat are compatiblewith the traditions of scholarship of diasporicpeople themselves.The New YorkAfrican BurialGroundProjecthas stimulated morethanan unprecedented interestin bioarAfrican Americans. It has about andsuschaeology among brought unprecedented tained nationaland international interestin an African Diasporicbioarchaeology that reveals the humancomplexity and contributions of African Americans.This the of Euro-American entitlement," i.e., the idea of project helps expose "myth and forefathers all built who, themselves, egalitarian freedom-lovingEuropean by the nation thattheirdescendantscan feel especially entitledto enjoy. The forensic approaches,although salvaging descriptivedata that might not otherwise have become available,have demonstrated little ability to interestthe public in diasporicbioarchaeology.The racialized and often ahistoricaldescriptions producedare so reminiscentof the early yearsof physical anthropology as to be at best puzzling,at worstrepugnant to manyAfricanAmericans,most strikingly demonstrated in New Yorkin the 1990s. Diasporicscholarship was knownto many membersof the African Americanlay public in New York,often throughrecent "Afrocentric" books, study groups,tours,and seminars.For them, somethingwas wrong with the expertisethey initially saw at the site. Yet forensics seemed to be a to excompatiblemethodwith governmentclients whose interestsare antithetical tensive and community-empowering researchprojectsthatcan slow construction theirsense of authority, andexpose naschedules,halt site destruction,undermine tional myth. The fact thatCRM contractannouncements often request"forensic" expertise ratherthan bioarchaeologicalor skeletal biological expertise is simply harmful.These are communities,not crime scenes. African Diasporic bioarchaeologyhas been throwninto heated debate about who should participatein the shaping of the past and how it should be done (McDavid & Babson 1997). It is now known thatchoices can be made by anthropologists themselves. It is possible to work with communities and successfully strugglefor a studyof mutualinterestto scholarsandthe public,albeitwith the risk of seeing memorialsbuiltwithoutstudyin some cases. We shouldlive with this. At a minimum,the resultsof previousforensiccontractworkshouldbe broughtinto an

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BLAKEY academic setting and reworked into more sophisticated interdisciplinary products. The question of for whom and for what these products are intended remains essential to their form and contribution.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am very thankful for the research assistance of David Harris, who obtained copies of all of the literature in African Diasporic bioarchaeology for this review. Thanks also to the many helpful colleagues who sent me their site reports. The African Burial Ground Project's emergent results are the collective products of over 100 technicians and senior researchers who have at some time worked with us. The principals associated with the findings and methods represented here include Mark Mack, Lesley Rankin-Hill, M. Cassandra Hill, Warren Perry, Edna Medford, Sherrill Wilson, Fatimah Jackson, Jean Howson, Len Bianchi, Shomarka Keita, Kweku Ofori Ansa, Augustin Holl, Christopher DeCorse, Linda Heywood, Selwyn Carrington, Michael Gomez, John Thornton, Susan Goode-Null, Alan Goodman, Christopher Null, Kenya Shujaa, Rachel Watkins, Emylin Brown, Ruth Mathis, Jean-Marie Cerasale, and many student technicians. Visit the Annual Reviews home page at www.AnnualReviews.org LITERATURE CITED Andah BW. 1995. Studying African societies in culturalcontext. See Schmidt& Patterson 1995, pp. 149-82 Angel JL. 1976. Colonial to modem skeletal changein the U.S.A. Am.J. Phys. Anthropol. 45:723-36 M, PinterS. Angel JL, Kelley JO, Parrington 1987. Life stressesof the free black community as represented by the FirstAfricanBaptist Church,Philadelphia,1823-1841. Am.J. Phys. Anthropol.74:213-29 Ansa KO. 1995. Identification andvalidationof the Sankofasymbol. Update 1:3 AntaDiop C. 1974. TheAfricanOriginof Civilization:MythorReality.Chicago:Lawrence Hill Books ApthekerH. 1943. AmericanNegro Slave Revolts. New York:International Armelagos GJ, Goodman AH. 1998. Race, racism, and anthropology.See Goodman& Leatherman1998, pp. 359-78 Armelagos GJ, Mielke JH, WinterJ. 1971. Res. BibliographyofHumanPaleopathology. Rep. No. 8. Amherst,MA: Dep. Anthropol., Univ. Massachusetts DV, FleishmanM. 1993.Analysisof Armstrong FourBurialsfrom AfricanJamaicanHouseYard Contextsat Seville.Rep.JamaicanNatl. Hist. Trust., Archaeol. Rep. 65. Syracuse, NY: SyracuseUniv. AufderheideAC, Rodreguez-Martin C. 1998. The CambridgeEncyclopediaof HumanPaleopathology. Cambridge,UK: Cambridge Univ. Press Baber WL. 1999. St. Clair Drake:scholar and activist. See Harrison& Harrison1999, pp. 191-212 Baker LD. 1998. From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896-1954. Berkeley:Univ. Calif. Press Bastide R. 1967. Les AmeriquesNoires, Les Civilisations Africaines dans le Nouveau Monde.Paris:Payot Beavers RC, Lamb TR, Greene JR. 1993. Burial Archaeologyand Osteology of CharNew GroveII Cemetery, ityHospital/Cypress

THE AFRICANDIASPORA Orleans,Louisiana.Vol. 1:Archaeologyand History.New Orleans,LA: Dep. Anthropol., Univ. New Orleans Blakey ML. 1988. Social policy, economics, and demographic change in NanticokeAm. J. Phys. Anthropol. Moor ethnohistory. 75:493-502 Blakey ML. 1996 [1987]. Skull doctors revisited: intrinsicsocial and political bias in the history of Americanphysical anthropology, with special reference to the work of Ales Hrdlicka.In Race and OtherMisadventures: Essays in Honor of Ashley Montagu in His NinetiethYear,ed. L Reynolds,L Lieberman, pp. 64-95. New York:GeneralHall Blakey ML. 1998a. The New York African BurialGroundProject:an examination of enslaved lives, a constructionof ancestralties. Transform. Anthropol.7:53-58 Blakey ML. 1998b. Beyond Europeanenlightenment:towarda criticalandhumanistichuman biology. See Goodman & Leatherman 1998, pp. 379-406 BlakeyML, JenkinsSB, JamisonD, Leslie TE. 1997. Dental indicators of fetal and childhood health in the archaeological remains of a nineteenth century African-American community.In Pathwaysto Success, eds. LR Sloan, BJ Starr, pp. 177-94. Washington, DC: HowardUniv. Press Blakey ML, Leslie TE, Reidy JP. 1992. Chronologicaldistributionof dental enamel hypoplasiain AfricanAmericanslaves:a test of the weaning hypothesis.Am.J. Phys. Anthropol.Suppl. 14:50 (Abstr.) Blakey ML, Leslie TE, Reidy JP.1994. Frequency and chronologicaldistributionof dental enamel hypoplasia in enslaved African Americans: a test of the weaning hypothesis. Am.J. Phys. Anthropol.95:371-84 Blakey ML, Mack ME, MedfordEG, Wilson SD, HankinA. 2000. Political economy of mortalityof enslaved Africans.Am.J. Phys. Anthropol.Suppl. 30:108 (Abstr.) Bolles AL. 1999. Ellen IreneDiggs: coming of age in Atlanta,Havana,and Baltimore. See Harrison& Harrison1999, pp. 168-90 Bond GC. 1988. A social portrait of JohnGibbs

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St. ClairDrake:an Americananthropologist. Am. Ethnol. 15:762-82 Browne DL. 1999. Across class and culture: Allison Davis andhis works.See Harrison& Harrison1999, pp. 168-90 BuchnerCA, BreitburgE, Williams C, Williams E. 1999. At Rest, Again: The Ridley Graveyard(40WM208)Archaeological Relocation Project, Williamson County, Tennessee. Report submitted to the Tennessee of Transportation, EnvironmenDepartment tal PlanningOffice,Nashville, 238 pp. MemConsultants phis: Panamerican BuikstraJE, Cook DC. 1980. Paleopathology: an Americanaccount.Annu.Rev.Anthropol. 9:433-70 Buxton LHD, TrevorJC, Julien AH. 1938. Skeletal remains from the Virgin Islands. Man 38:49-51 Cobb WM. 1936. Race and runners.J. Health Phys. Ed. 7:1-9 Cobb WM. 1939a. Thomas WingateTodd:an Am.J. Phys. Anthropol.Suppl. appreciation. 25:1-3 CobbWM. 1939b.The Negro as a biological element in the Americanpopulation.J. Negro Ed. 8:336-48 Cook K. 1993. Black bones, white science: the battle over New York's African Burial Ground.VillageVoice4 May:23-27 CorrucciniRS, AufderheideAC, HandlerJS, Wittmers LE Jr. 1987a.Patterning of skeletal lead content in Barbadosslaves. Archaeometry 29:233-39 CorrucciniRS, HandlerJS, Jacobi K. 1985. Chronological distribution of enamel hypoplasias and weaning in a Caribbeanslave population.Hum.Biol. 57:699-711 CorrucciniRS, HandlerJS, MutawRJ, Lange FW. 1982. Osteology of a slave burialpopulation from Barbados,West Indies. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.59:443-59 CorrucciniRS,JacobiKP, Handler JS, Aufderheide AC. 1987b. Implicationsof tooth root in a Barbadosslave skeletal hypercementosis collection. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.74:17984 Crummell A. 1861. TheRelationsandDuties on

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