Who Owns the Bones?

The fate of human remains that are uncovered by archaeologists

Catholic Louisiana’s burial customs are unique. In New Orleans, Breaux Bridge, Plaquemine, and other bayou communities, ornate and splendid tombs were often built above ground. Expensive caskets containing the bodies of the revered deceased were placed inside these brick, concrete, and marble crypts for perpetual care.

Sometimes, though, hurricanes and floods disturb cemeteries and graves are washed away. My aunt May-May’s brother was buried in the cemetery at the bend of the Atchafalaya River in Butte La Rose.

“A flood came and took part of the riverbank,” May-May said. “They found my brother’s casket and put him back. Another flood came and took another part of the riverbank. I don’t know where my brother is now.”

Reverence for the dead is important, but archaeologist Dennis Jones said family members can’t really remember their ancestors any more than two generations back.

“Anyone older than their grandparents is just part of a big ball of the past, and people don’t know how to differentiate when something occurred in the past,” Jones said.

That’s why old cemeteries in urban centers and family burial plots on plantations and farms fall into disrepair or are simply abandoned.

“There are plenty of family plot cemeteries in rural Louisiana where the children moved to the city; and after a couple of generations, the family plots were forgotten,” said Jones.

Hired by L’Auberge Casino and the LSU Rural Life Museum, Jones is the principal archaeologist directing the excavation of the forgotten Chatsworth Plantation sugar mill and plantation on River Road in Baton Rouge.

Chatsworth was owned at different times in history by François Gardère (Gardere Lane) and Joseph Staring (Staring Lane). The grand house with fifty rooms, which had fallen into a dilapidated state, was torn down in 1930 to make room for the Mississippi River levee.

“The sugar factory was abandoned and eventually fell in upon itself,” Jones said.

Hundreds of people have driven past the intersection of Gardere Lane and Nicholson Highway, and not many know that a nineteenth century sugar mill containing all sorts of artifacts lay hidden beneath the blackberry brambles and Johnson grass.

Jones and his team have been excavating Chatsworth for nearly a year. They finished the sugar house excavation last June and are now digging up the living quarters of the farm hands.

Their sugar house work uncovered a maze of brick structures that housed the water tanks, sugar storage floor, and furnaces used to convert cane juice into raw sugar. The catacomb-ish brickwork was fairly well preserved under layers of slate from the caved-in roof, dirt, and vegetation.

Why did L’Auberge Casino hire a team of archaeologists to exhume a pile of old bricks?

Because our collective American consciousness has been raised, Jones said.

Laws have been enacted to ensure that any land that is being developed with federal dollars must be given a proper survey to determine if there are significant archaeological artifacts or structures, including human remains, on the property. And if any human remains are found, the government agencies or the archaeological contractors involved must advertise in local media that remains have been found. In other words, an effort must be made to determine who owns the bones.

Violations of Native American burial grounds have served as plot fodder for dozens of Hollywood movies. Jeremiah Johnson was doomed to fight a never-ending line of Indian warriors because he led a cavalry rescue mission across tribal holy ground. A child was kidnapped by malevolent spirits in Poltergeist because an unscrupulous land developer built a subdivision over an ancient burial site. Pets buried in Pet Sematary arose from the dead.

The fact is Indian burial grounds were violated in the past, but grave robbing was not limited to Native American sacred lands. There have been many cases of unscrupulous collectors dealing in iron crosses, decorative urns, and other artifacts stolen from Louisiana’s famous historic cemeteries.

Jones said the collective American consciousness was raised in 1990 when Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Native American graves were often unmarked and did not receive the same protection that marked cemeteries received. Human remains and artifacts taken illegally from burial grounds were to be returned to the lineal descendants.

Another law, the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, protects all historic archaeological sites that are on federal land or land that is in development with federal funds. For instance, U.S. Highway 165 was being widened in 2006 from Columbia, La. to West Monroe. An Indian mound site called the Filhiol Mound near the Bosco community was located on the right-of-way.

Jones said the Filhiol Mound had not been bulldozed for farming use partly because a European cemetery had been placed on one of the mounds.

“There was no legislation to prevent people from knocking over tombstones or bulldozing Indian mounds to make the land conform to their wishes,” Jones said. “Private landowners are not required to preserve any archaeological sites, but some do because there has been a raising of consciousness. It’s a cultural shift, but it’s taken a long time.”

In other cases, known burial sites, both Indian and European, have been preserved by private landowners simply because “they are superstitious,” Jones added.

The Filhiol Mound excavation did find human remains—thirteen individuals. As per law, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development advertised in the local newspapers to see if any family would claim the remains. No one did, so the remains and all the items recovered with them were placed in boxes and given a Catholic burial at a cemetery in Monroe. The DOTD placed a marker on the tomb commemorating the existence of our nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ouachita Parish forebears.

Jones said he doesn’t expect to find any human remains at the Chatsworth dig.

“We haven’t found any, and I would be shocked if we did,” he said. “We’re excavating the working part of the plantation, not where they worshipped.”

Jones’ work will be catalogued and the information will be stored with the collection at LSU AgCenter’s Burden Center. The casino will be able to modify the dig site if they so choose after the archaeological work is completed. Perhaps a researcher will use Jones’ archaeological study a hundred years from now. One thing is certain, in the future, the way we look at the past will be different.