. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. READING THE EARTH. By Jeannie Faris State archaeologist Mark Mathis dreads finding human burials when he excavates a prehistoric Native Ameri- can site. He'd rather not unearth bones laid to rest centuries ago by societies that took great measures to honor their dead. "We try to deal with it as reverently as possible," says Mathis, who works for the Office of State Archaeol- ogy. "We do (exhumations) because we have to, rather than see them de- ; But human burials are among
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. READING THE EARTH. By Jeannie Faris State archaeologist Mark Mathis dreads finding human burials when he excavates a prehistoric Native Ameri- can site. He'd rather not unearth bones laid to rest centuries ago by societies that took great measures to honor their dead. "We try to deal with it as reverently as possible," says Mathis, who works for the Office of State Archaeol- ogy. "We do (exhumations) because we have to, rather than see them de- ; But human burials are among the most revealing remnants of prehistoric Indian societies that left few clues and no written language to memorialize their way of life. And increasingly, researchers find themselves running a losing race against the clock — against the eroding forces of nature, the farmers' plows and the bulldozers of developers — to find coastal Indian sites and salvage their contents before they are destroyed. "Unfortunately, where the early settlers and Indians lived is where we like to live," Mathis says. "That's a ; Among the dozens of burials exhumed in coastal North Carolina are mass collections of bones called ossuaries, a ceremonious mixing together of people who died over a span of time in a town or village. Common themes run throughout the excavated burials, but the differences are espe- cially telling about a society. Some ossuaries contain carefully placed, distinct bundles of bones. These are usually the remains of the noble or ruling class that had been scraped of flesh and stored in special charnel houses until the burial ceremony. Still other graves are small pits containing a single body, possibly a commoner, with the knees flexed up to the chest in a fetal position. 8 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1992. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
