If these bones could talk, what stories Virginia skeletons
would tell! Over the years, the discovery of human bones
has become common enough that the removal of remains is
governed by Virginia
Antiquities Act, which requires permits from the Virginia
Department of Historic Resources.
Actually, Virginia’s first archeologist was none
other than Thomas Jefferson, considered the father of
the discipline. He is recognized for developing excavation
techniques when he explored an Indian burial mound on
the grounds of his estate in 1784. Instead of digging
downwards, he cut a wedge into the mound, so he could
walk in, see layers and examine them horizontally. He
described his finds in detail in his 1781 study of Virginia’s
natural history, Notes on the State of Virginia.
“I first dug superficially in several parts of it
[a mound], and came to collections of human bones, at
different depths, from six inches to three feet below
the surface.” He concluded that the more than 1,000
skeletons that might be in the mound were part of an Indian
burial ground that had been used over multiple generations.
One of the most interesting bone tales in the commonwealth
is the effort to identify a skeleton found in Jamestown
as that of Bartholomew Gosnold, one of the main organizers
of the Jamestown expedition, who died three months after
the group entered the Chesapeake. Most recently, the Association
for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities reports
that a tooth test suggests the skeleton came from the
area in England where Gosnold was born, but that other
identities could also be possible. It could be Captain
Gabriel Archer, Sir Ferdinando Wenman or Lord De La Warr,
all among Jamestown’s first settlers. Apparently,
it’s possible to compare the ratio of strontium
and oxygen isotopes in teeth to the ratio of the same
isotopes in drinking water in specific regions. A lab
in Nottingham, England conducted the tests last year.
Speaking of England, singer Wayne Newton attempted to
bring Pocahontas’ remains back from a church near
London to her Virginia birthplace, reported People
magazine more than a decade ago (“A True Legend.
Pocahontas,” July 10, 1995). Newton claims to be
a descendant of Virginia’s famous Indian princess.
The Old Dominion also has returned its skeletal finds
to their rightful resting places in other states. In June
2006, two archeologists from the Fairfax County Park Authority
drove to Massachusetts to return the remains of six Civil
War soldiers unearthed in Virginia during the construction
of a restaurant in Centreville in 1997. After extensive
research by the Park Authority staff, volunteers and others,
it is believed the six soldiers were casualties from the
Battle of Blackburn’s Ford on July 18, 1861, which
occurred three days prior to First Manassas/Bull Run.
Union soldiers from two volunteer regiments, the 1st Massachusetts
and the 12th New York, were among the casualties and were
brought back to Centreville to hospitals. The soldiers
were reburied at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in
Bourne on June 10, 2006 in ceremonies hosted by the Massachusetts
Sons of Unions Veterans of the Civil War.
Sometimes war heroes interred in other states are sent
back to Virginia. Those of Little
Sorrel certainly have come home. Since 1997, the cremated
remains of Stonewall Jackson's horse have been interred
on the parade grounds at the Virginia Military Institute
at the foot of General Jackson’s statue. It seems
when Little Sorrel died in 1885, after a career on the
Southern fair and Confederate reunion circuit, his hide
was immediately stuffed. The taxidermist, however, took
the bones as payment and they ended up at the Carnegie
Institute in Pittsburgh. It took more than 100 years to
coax them back.
January 8, 2007
Nice & Curious
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