Dr Felicia Fricke from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark is visiting Grenada for 2 weeks to assist the Grenada National Museum (GNM) in better understanding the human remains stored there.
The GNM currently houses 20 burials, primarily precolonial and varying in completeness, from various archaeological sites across the island, including Dragon Bay, Beausejour, Sauteurs Bay, Pearls, Simon Beach, La Sagesse, Lance Pere, True Blue, and Grand Anse.
During her visit, Dr Fricke conducted a morphological analysis of the remains to provide basic information such as age, sex, health/disease, and more. Small samples were also taken for stable isotope analysis (strontium, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon) to gain insights into diet and geographic location during childhood when the adult teeth were developing. Dr Jason Laffoon will conduct these isotopic analyses at Leiden University, The Netherlands.
Dr Fricke emphasised that the results would be shared with the Grenadian public through a technical report later this year. “By conducting these analyses on the human remains at the Museum, we hope to shed light on the lives of the people who once inhabited the island,” she said. “We are excited to see how this information will contribute to our understanding of Grenada’s history and heritage. Osteology can be an important way to personalise the past and to provide information that can’t be gained from historical documents.”
Additionally, other analyses conducted on these burials can begin to be combined to give a more complete picture of each individual. For example, the osteological results will complement the aDNA samples garnered from the same set of burials last year by Dr Kendra Sirak of Harvard Medical School. While not all of those samples were successful, the preliminary results shed some light on the Indigenous population before Europeans arrived.
Dr Jonathan Hanna, the lead archaeologist for the Grenada Public Archaeology Network (GPAN), who has been cataloguing the Museum’s collections for several years, said that conducting these analyses reveals the valuable information they hold about the past. “There are additional analyses pending, specifically concerning teeth morphometry and dental calculus. But after performing all feasible studies, we may potentially inter some of these remains in a more suitable location, such as a new memorial at Leapers’ Hill. Additionally, a few remains were enslaved Africans and, thus, could be laid to rest in a monument honouring Emancipation Day.”
On Saturday, 4 March, Dr Fricke gave a workshop at the GNM on osteological methods and her preliminary osteological findings at the Museum, for GPAN participants from Sauteurs and La Sagesse. She will also give a lecture at Norton Hall on 8 March at 3 pm, focused on an historical research project she recently completed regarding Antony O’Hannan, the renegade priest who caused a schism in the local church in the 1820s, just prior to Emancipation.
John Angus Martin, the newly appointed Director of the GNM, noted that it is essential to conduct scientific analyses in Grenada. “It is important that we learn as much as possible about our island’s history and share that knowledge with Grenadians about their heritage and the rest of the world,” he said.
GPAN is an initiative of the Institute for People’s Enlightenment (IPE) and is supported by UNESCO. Drs Fricke and Hanna thanked the Board of the Grenada National Museum, the Ministry of Culture, UNESCO, IPE, the IN THE SAME SEA project at the University of Copenhagen, the European Research Council, and several GPAN participants who helped make the visit such a success.
GPAN
