ABSTRACT
In the summer of 2012, a cemetery at Marshall’s Pen, which featured interments marked by cut limestone blocks, was cleared of overgrowth and mapped in detail. As it was uncommon for slave burials to be so grandly marked, if marked at all, this
work led to questions regarding who was buried at the site and what these people had died from. This article explores death and burial practices at Marshall’s Pen through an evaluation of the documentary record, previous archaeological results
from similar sites, and modern mortuary practices in the surrounding region. Analyses of these various data sets provide an example of howhistorical archaeologists draw from multiple lines of evidence to interpret the material culture of death.
