ABSTRACT

In North America, the systematic observation of ancient excavated skeletal materials to investigate alternative interpretations of past lifeways can be traced to Thomas Jefferson (1853), one of the Founding Fathers and the third President of the United States.1 Jefferson opened a burial mound located on his property in order to explore different contemporary explanations for their purpose. Commenting upon the “Barrows” or mounds “found all over this country,” Jefferson outlined alternative interpretations:

Did the mounds contain the dead accrued from ancient battles or were they ossuaries or perhaps community cemeteries? Indian traditions, Jefferson stated, *

supported the last alternative, whereby mounds were said to contain sequential burials placed erect and then covered with earth. Jefferson’s excavations, however, led him to define four superimposed ossuary episodes, based on: “ 1. The number of bones. 2. Their confused position. 3. Their being in different strata. 4. The strata in one part having no correspondence with those in another. 5. The different states of decay in these strata, which seem to indicate a difference in the time of inhumation. 6. The existence of infant bones among them.” In reaching his conclusion, Jefferson thus utilized information that combined the observation of human remains within an archaeological context to select between alternative interpretative models. Today this approach would be considered bioarchaeological.