Archaeologists Find Bound Bodies Of Enslaved Africans In Portuguese Trash Dump
Mar 22, 2019, 02:25pm
Archaeologists Find Bound Bodies Of Enslaved Africans In Portuguese Trash Dump
Kristina Killgrove
Senior Contributor
Archaeologist, Writer, Scientist
In the early 15th century, Portuguese explorers like Henry the Navigator began sailing to Africa, bringing back both goods and enslaved people. A new archaeological study of more than 150 skeletons dumped in Lagos, Portugal, reveals that many of the enslaved Africans were not given proper burials and that several of them may even have been tied up at death.
The skeletons come from the site of Valle da Gafaria, which was located outside the Medieval walls of the port city of Lagos along the southwest coast of Portugal. Used between the 15th and 17th centuries as a dumping ground, the site also offered up remains of imported ceramics, butchered animal bones, and a few African style ornaments. When the human skeletons were first analyzed, their shape and unique dental style suggested they may have been of African origin, and a later genetic analysis confirmed ancestry with southern African, Bantu-speaking populations. Due to the archaeological and historical information, it is likely that all of these people were enslaved.
In a new research article published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, Maria Teresa Ferreira, Catarina Coelho, and Sofia Wasterlain of the University of Coimbra dug further into the bone data in order to understand how the 158 enslaved Africans came to be buried in a trash pit in Lagos. Specifically, they investigated the position of each burial, whether or not the burial was made with care, and whether they could identify any evidence that the person's body had been bound.
The Medieval Catholic concern with burial meant that the church was important in handling deaths in Portugal. A body would be ferried to the church in a funeral procession, and a grave would be chosen as close to a religious building as possible. Elites and nobles were usually buried in an area protected by walls, while more marginal people were located outside. Those people who were further stigmatized by disease, condemned, or otherwise considered not to be deserving of care would be placed far outside sacred spaces.
More:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2019/03/22/archaeologists-find-bound-bodies-of-enslaved-africans-in-portuguese-trash-dump/#139d9f646509
