Lives Lost: What Burial Vault Studies Reveal About Eighteenth-Century Identities

Ancient DNA and bioarchaeological perspectives on European and African diversity and relationships on the colonial Delaware frontier

“…Such methods have been used to evaluate the biohistories of individuals from North American colonial burial sites, providing crucial information about multiethnic cemetery organization (Byrnes et al, 2012; Lee, Anderson, Dale, & Merriwether, ) and the population affinity of African or African‐descended individuals transported to the Canary Islands (Maca‐Meyer et al, ; Santana et al, ) and the Caribbean (Schroeder et al, ) during the trans‐Atlantic slave trade. aDNA analysis has also confirmed the identities and relationships of colonial Chesapeake remains in conjunction with detailed historical archaeological evidence, including investigations of high status individuals found at Historic St. Mary's City, Maryland (Reich et al, ), an 18th century Maryland family tomb (Owsley, Bruwelheide, Barca, Reidy, & Fleskes, ), and an 18th century European domestic site in Delaware (McKeown et al, ). These studies, in addition to the recovery of DNA from a clay tobacco pipe in 19th century Maryland (Schablitsky et al, ) and the developing analysis of 18th–19th century tooth samples from Montpelier, Virginia (Wright, Monroe, Reeves, & Hoffman, ), represent the only reported aDNA data from colonial Chesapeake sites at the time of submission.…”