Archaeology under the Blinding Light of Race

Racism is defined as a modern system of inequity emergent in Atlantic slavery in which “Whiteness” is born and embedded. This essay describes its transformation. The operation of racist Whiteness in current archaeology and related anthropological practices is demonstrated in the denigration and exclusion of Black voices and the denial of racism and its diverse appropriations afforded the White authorial voice. The story of New York’s African Burial Ground offers a case in point

Epistemology for a Humanistic Human Biology: the Case of the New York African Burial Ground Project at Howard University

A basic respect for the meaning of culture (that human perceptions, ideas, and behaviors learned) demands us to accept that the human practice of science is thoroughly embedded in culture..

New distributions for modeling subjective lower and upper probabilities

This paper presents an investigation of a relatively unstudied approach to modeling lower and upper subjective probabilities. It is based on the fact that every cumulative distribution function (CDF) with support (0,1) has a “dual” CDF that obeys the conjugacy relation between coherent lower and upper probabilities. A new 2-parameter family of “CDF-Quantile” distributions with support (0,1) is extended via a third parameter for the purpose of modeling lower–upper probabilities via this approach. The extension exploits certain properties of the CDF-Quantile family, and the fact that continuous CDFs on (0,1) random variables form an algebraic group that is closed under composition. This extension also yields methods for testing specific models of lower–upper probability assignments. Finally, the new models are applied to real data-sets, and compared with alternative approaches for their relative advantages and drawbacks

Criminal Redistribution of Stolen Property: The Need for Law Reform

The development of sophisticated fencing systems for the sale of stolen property to consumers has paralleled the industrialization of society. Although crimes against property and attempts to control them have ancient origins, most theft before the Industrial Revolution was committed for immediate consumption by the thieves and their accomplices rather than for redistribution in the market-place. Society\u27s small population, inadequate transportation and communication systems, and technological inability to mass produce identical goods constrained large-scale fencing because there were few buyers and because stolen property could be readily identified. The unprecedented economic and demographic growth in eighteenth-century Europe, however, removed these practical constraints and made possible the profitable fencing operations that are now firmly institutionalized in industrial societies. Although these social and technological developments are important, they do not provide a complete explanation for the rising theft rate or for the tremendous amount of property successfully redistributed annually. Instead, these problems must be attributed in large part to our society\u27s failure to identify properly the economic relationship underlying theft and redistribution and, consequently, to our inability to develop successful methods of legal control. This review of the history and development of theft and fencing has documented the need for reform in the substantive law and in law enforcement practices. The current state of the law is simply not equipped to cope with a problem that is already extremely serious, and that can only get worse

Analysis of Two Human Skeletons from Smith\u27s Fort, Bermuda

The excavation of a portion of Smith\u27s Fort, Bermuda, was led by Norman Barka of the College of William and Mary during the summers of 2000 and 2001. Excavation revealed two burials located within the merlons of the Fort\u27s upper battery. The remains of the two individuals were kept in the Bermuda Maritime Museum before they were transferred to the Institute for Historical Biology by the Museum\u27s director, Edward C. Harris. The remains of both individuals were inventoried and cleaned with deionized water and soft brushes prior to analysis by the Institute\u27s staff. This is the first report of their analysis

Criminal Redistribution of Stolen Property: The Need for Law Reform

The development of sophisticated fencing systems for the sale of stolen property to consumers has paralleled the industrialization of society. Although crimes against property and attempts to control them have ancient origins, most theft before the Industrial Revolution was committed for immediate consumption by the thieves and their accomplices rather than for redistribution in the market-place. Society\u27s small population, inadequate transportation and communication systems, and technological inability to mass produce identical goods constrained large-scale fencing because there were few buyers and because stolen property could be readily identified. The unprecedented economic and demographic growth in eighteenth-century Europe, however, removed these practical constraints and made possible the profitable fencing operations that are now firmly institutionalized in industrial societies. Although these social and technological developments are important, they do not provide a complete explanation for the rising theft rate or for the tremendous amount of property successfully redistributed annually. Instead, these problems must be attributed in large part to our society\u27s failure to identify properly the economic relationship underlying theft and redistribution and, consequently, to our inability to develop successful methods of legal control. This review of the history and development of theft and fencing has documented the need for reform in the substantive law and in law enforcement practices. The current state of the law is simply not equipped to cope with a problem that is already extremely serious, and that can only get worse

Assessment of Human Remains from Archaeological Site 44YO2

On Wednesday 9 April, 2003, Dennis Blanton, director at the William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research contacted Michael Blakey, director of The Institute for Historical Biology, concerning the identification and inventory of human remains located at a local archaeological site during project testing. The human remains were picked up from the WMCAR labs on Tuesday, 15 April 2003 and the inventory and identification list followed a week later. This report is an in-depth description of the conclusions reached through the study of the remains

Report on the Human Remains Recovered from Block 23CB on Colonial Williamsburg Property

During the summer of 2003, Dr. Michael Blakey, director of the Institute for Historical Biology, was contacted by the archaeologists at Colonial Williamsburg Foundation notifying him that they had located human remains at the intersection of Jamestown, Richmond and Boundary Roads. The remains were excavated by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation archaeologists and taken to their conservation lab until further notice. On 22 November 2003, Shannon Mahoney, a graduate research associate at the Institute for Historical Biology, contacted Andrew Edwards and Emily Williams of Colonial Williamsburg regarding the remains on Block 23 of the Colonial Williamsburg historic area. On 12 January 2004, Blakey and Mahoney visited the conservation lab where Emily Williams described the recovery of the remains and the field methodology. During excavation at the site, Lucie Vinciguerra had removed the remains and wrapped them in foil and the foil packets were placed in a refrigerator to inhibit any further deterioration. Emily Williams cleaned the remains and mended a few of the elements with B-72, which were then placed in plastic bags and labeled with their original foil packet number

Analysis of Human Remains Recovered from James Anderson’s Public Armoury, Colonial Williamsburg

In November of 2010, Dr. Michael Blakey, director of the Institute for Historical Biology, was contacted by archaeologist Andrew Edwards of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation notifying him of the discovery of human remains during an excavation of the James Anderson’s Public Armoury, located near Francis Street in Colonial Williamsburg. After consultation, it was decided that the remains of the two individuals would be transferred to the Institute for Historical Biology for inventory and analysis. The first individual was transferred on January 5th, 2011 from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s collections facility, where it had been cleaned by conservator, Emily Williams, and the second individual was transferred directly from the archaeological site March 17th, 2011

Criminal Redistribution of Stolen Property: The Need for Law Reform

Section I of this article describes various theft and fencing operations. As will be evident from that discussion, the most sophisticated fences are far removed from those receivers who are owners of seedy pawnshops or who indiscriminately select potential customers on the street, and thus they pose peculiar problems for law enforcement. Section II then identifies inadequacies in existing investigative techniques and in the substantive laws of receiving in light of modern theft and fencing operations. It proposes changes in the law and suggests appropriate law enforcement strategies to facilitate the detection and conviction of alleged fences. Needed changes in the civil law are also discussed. Throughout these sections of the article, reference will be made to the provisions of a Model Theft and Fencing Act set forth in appendix B