The Young Woman from Harleigh Knoll
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Africans in the Chesapeake
Finding African Burials in the Chesapeake
African Origins
The Young Woman from Harleigh Knoll
With skeletal remains, the story of Africans in the Chesapeake is slowly unfolding, person by person. Remote-sensing technologies are helping scientists locate forgotten men and women.
- Using GPR at Harleigh Knoll. Image courtesy of: Smithsonian Institution
Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) can detect underground anomalies. Along with larger human bones such as skulls, femurs, and tibiae, other grave features become visible—metallic coffin hardware, the disturbed soil of grave shafts,and rocks or metal objects in grave fill.
- African female skeleton partially exposed in the remains of a wooden coffin, exceptionally well-preserved in sandy soil. Image courtesy of: Smithsonian Institution
GPR contributed to finding one young African woman, 17 to 19 years old, whose story might have remained untold. She lived at a time when the population of slaves in the Chesapeake was rising. At the tobacco plantation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore where she was found, the remains of whites and blacks are buried side by side. Her skeleton tells of a hard life of physical labor. Back trauma is evident in her vertebrae, along with heavy use of muscles that deeply pitted the bones of her upper body.
Her cause of death remains a mystery, but—through facial reconstruction—she will soon return our gaze.
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