Main Page | Archaeology Main | Top
This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page
On Friday, the 15 November the story hit the news. Bottle-diggers scrounging around in the area of the trench and saw the bones lying around. They went to the newspapers (big scandal, all these murders going on underneath our very noses!). The police were brought in but decided that it was not at all recent and should be the problem of the Municipality. Hearing the story over the radio and seeing it in the morning papers, we contacted the minucipality and all's well that ends well. They asked us for help and now we are busy excavating the graveyard for removal prior to the building of the road.
There are material from all parts of the body. Iron nails and pieces of wood was found associated with some of the bone. There are also graves with corrugated iron coverings. Spiral copper wire bracelets are also found in association with some longbones. These were probably buried with the body and are commonly found on archaeological sites. From the state of dental wear it is also apparent that some of the people were relatively young when they died.
The subsurface soil consists of a soft sandstone material. The graves are not in a regular line and it looks as if the burials took place in spots where a natural depression in the sandstone could be found. The graves were dug a little bit into the sandstone but are all relatively shallow. The bones are in various states of preservation. The sun did take its toll but the material doesn't look too bad.
The person was a young male individual of between 25 and 35 years of age. The teeth show some interesting morphology. The upper central incisors were filed. The central two-thirds of the teeth were removed for 3.5mm. The second upper incisors are bilateral reduced to pegshapes. Apart from the right upper first incisor, the teeth are in a good condition. The right upper first incisor has a opening into the root canal with a peri-apical abscess which would have caused the person quite a lot of discomfort.
PS: Reconstruction of the skull is going slow but not bad at all. I am taking a photograph every now and then and will have it up somewhere when I'm finished.
UP53 is not a complete grave. Only the impression of the skull can be seen from the side. There are still some pieces of skull in the depression and we also find some metacarpal bones on the southern side of the skull. Bones from both the left and right hand are found. Nothing more can be said about this person.
UP54 is the upper body of a male individual, possibly also young. UP54 was lying on his back in an east-west direction. The skull is present as well as the left and right upper arms and shoulders. The vertebrae and ribs are present but very poorly preserved. No age are yet available. Enamel pearls are observed on the incisors. All of these bones are relatively brittle. The grave was also open to the side and would have been quite wet. Mold started growing on the bones.
The Council tentatively agrees that we must move the graves. Their main concern is that we should be finished before they have to start on the road. Until everything is formalized we will go on rescueing the graves that are visible in the side of the trench.
The corrugated iron is short and does not cover the whole of the body. The legs from the femurs down were open. The skeleton is lying on its back with the skull originally on the western side. It was probably destroyed in the trench. The right humerus is missing, probably because of graverobbers (what else can one call it?). The torax was badly preserved and crumbled. Fragments of the sternum and ribs were recovered. There are material present in the area of the pelvis, torax and left humerus. The legs were lying next to each other with the feet together and the left over the right. We also recover a number of buttons, some copper pieces and badly coroded iron objects. One of these were possibly a belt buckle. On one of the buttons, the original colour, white and green, of the fabric used can still be seen.
This person was very young. The epiphyses of the longbones are still unfused. This means anything younger than 24 but most probably younger than 18. The sex is a problem because the skull is missing and the pelvis are covered with material. This will only be removed in the lab.
We also start removing the top of the next grave. This will save some time tomorrow and there isn't enough place inside the grave for both of us. We are thinking of bringing out a decree that all new graves should have steps build into the sides. Either that, or have it six feet wide and only three deep instead of the other way round. At least these are not six feet!
We found the right fibula and patella and two feet. The feet are on a higher level than the rest of the body and against the bottom end of the grave which was also dug into the soft sandstone. The right foot is above the left. There are quite a lot of material left in this grave. It looks like some kind of sack with clothing mixed in. We also find a number of buttons. Around the left fibula which is now missing, there were a number of spiral copper bracelets.
UP58 is relatively shallow. The deepest point in this grave 50 cm. It is slightly to the north, near and above another grave. We start opening up the whole area and will do the shallow grave first. UP58 don't show a definite gravepit visible from the side. The grave next to it is quite deep however, and the infill shows clearly from the side. In UP58 the articular surface for the femur can be seen as well as the distal ends of the bones in the forearms.
The upper part of the body from the pelvis up is left. The hands and legs were scraped of. This person was also buried on his or her left side with the head on the western side. The skull is lying on its left side, facing north. The right arm is above the vertebral column and the left arm lies in front of the body.
Although no gravepit was visible from the side, the skull is lying in a hollow in the sandstone. The bones are brittle but well preserved. We do have trouble because the soil is damp. This makes it difficult to open up the bone. We remove the skull and longbones but decide to take a chance and leave the vertebrae and ribs. We do cover them with a carton, some plastic and layer of soil. Hopefully no-one will tamper with this.
Artefacts: This person had a ring in the right ear which we find next to the mastoid. It has stained the bone green. The mandible on the other side is also stained green but we transfer the skull immediately to a sandbed. Curiosity will have to wait until it has dried out. There are some material in this region as well.
© Okt 1998 mloots@medic.up.ac.za