Book Description

Excavations carried out in 1982 (by the Arkansas Archeological survey under contract with the New Orleans District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) at the Cedar Grove site (3LA97) in Lafayette County, Arkansas, recovered and relocated 79 graves from a historic Black cemetery threatened by revetment construction along the south bank of the Red River. Each grave was excavated and the artifact and skeletal data were recorded in temporary field laboratories before the relocation of all remains to a new cemetery. Analysis of the artifact material dated all graves to the period 1890 to 1927 when the cemetery was covered by silt from a major flood of the Red River. Preliminary analysis of the casket hardware and personal grave goods suggests differential mortuary treatment by age and possibly by economic resources. Analysis of the skeletal demographics showed that the reconstructed age and sex profile represents a highly stressed by normal biological population. Preliminary analysis of the skeletal data indicates high frequencies of anemia, rickets, scurvy, and protein malnutrition. The presence of weanling diarrhea is indicated by high frequencies of systemic periostitis, active cribra orbitalia, and a modal childhood age at death of 18 months. High frequencies of degenerative joint disease is indicated on the adult skeletons suggest a hard rigorous life style, which indicates that the amount of physical labor required of Blacks had not changed since slavery. Comparison of these data to the historical record reveals that diet, health, and general quality of life for southwest Arkansas Blacks had deteriorated significantly since emancipation due to the fall in cotton prices and legalized discrimination--pg. v.