New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 9. The Late Group

Late Group assignments are based on the dating of artifacts from grave shafts, on stratigraphic relationships, and, most importantly, on burial location, as discussed in Chapter 4. Reasons to place this group in the period from 1776 to the close of the cemetery include the destruction of the fence marking the cemetery’s north edge and likely usurpation of Rutgers property during the British occupation; and northward pressure caused by military uses of the ground to the south (for a fuller discussion, see Chapter 4). The frequency of coffin-less burials and the preponderance of men to the north of the fence post alignment is also best explained by the circumstances of the Revolutionary War and the British occupation of New York, as will be discussed in section 9.C.

The town and its population are characterized, and then the mortuary sample and related material culture are described, followed by a discussion of the spatial distribution of excavated graves and descriptions of some unique and unusual burials in this temporal group.