Brazoria

I am currently working in Brazoria, Texas on removing African-American burials that fall underneath a road in the city. It is a fun project with good co-workers and it is sunny and warm. It may sound gruesome or weird to excavate burials but it is pretty interesting. These burials date to the 19th and early 20th century and have to be moved so they won't be destroyed. MOre are probably under the houses in the area, but we may never know. A cemetery is just east of the road and was established in the mid 20th century, but more than likely burials in this area date much much earlier. A plantation is nearby and it may be this first started out as a slave cemetery.

Each coffin is different - some are shaped like count dracula's, an irregular diamond shape others taper toward the feet or are rectangular. Some coffins were placed within outer boxes but some just had planks across the top. When we remove the wood we find screws that held the lid down - these are sometimes ornate and sometimes very plain caps. We also find handles associated with the coffins. Within the coffins we find the human remains, in varying degrees of decomposition but only consisting of bones - some bones are severly fragmented, some are fairly well intact. All of them have been disturbed by the ground water and the natural forces of the earth - sometimes leg bones are under the head or vertebrae are down by the feet.

It is interesting work.