58 www.ReadMPM.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.MountPleasantPodcast.com and tributaries that controlled the tides, wars, vandalism, neglect, disintegration and erosion created by overdevelopment and climate change have contributed to their further devastation. Tulla added that during the mid-20th century when major highways were being developed, laws protecting buried human remains had not yet been implemented. Thus roadwork, especially in more rural areas out towards the plantations, sometimes plowed right over forgotten sites of the interred. ANCIENT REMAINS Yet, some ancient burial grounds of Indigenous people have managed to survive over 4,000 years of disasters such as these. In his essay “Shell Midden Archaeology: Current Trends and Future Directions” for the “Journal of Archaeological Research,” Torben C. Rick defines these sites, called shell middens, as “a special type of coastal settlement in which shell refuse is a dominant part but which is mixed with cultural debris such as flint, bone, antler, charcoal, ceramics, ash, fire-cracked stones and features such as hearths, pits, stake-holes and graves, etc.” One of the oldest middens in the United States, according to the U.S. Forest Service, is located in the Francis Marion National Forest in Awendaw, and another two are located on the backside of Hobcaw Barony off of Highway 17 just north of Georgetown. PLANTATION ERA Much later, during the plantation era (1676-1865), each estate ran according to its own rule book and as a result, customs of how to bury enslaved workers varied from property to property. For example, one source that anonymously shared stories passed down from generations of her enslaved ancestors told of rolling their deceased into the river. Another said that some years ago when a landowner of an old plantation was walking in the woods of his property, he happened to look down and saw human bones scattered all around the vicinity. The more he explored the forest, the more remains he found, leading to a sickening conclusion that the area had been dug as a shallow mass grave. Countless other accounts related that due to illiteracy, along with a lack of resources for carving tombstones, when the enslaved buried their loved ones, they left a marker such as a stone, a branch or a shell. According to the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, these items purposefully placed on graves were often “turned upside down and broken. This practice also reflects practices in Africa. The upside-down position of the object symbolizes the inverted nature of the spirit world. The breaks allow the object to release its spirit so it can journey to the next world.” However, with a high tide or the gust of a strong wind, these symbols could easily be swept away, forever swallowing the memory of a gravesite’s location. Other records, according to Tulla, indicate that religious planters often dictated Christian-based ceremonies and processes for interring the enslaved, and that proper burials may have been more common than we know. Take, for example, the Parker’s Island Cemetery, now part of the Rivertowne development, where only four graves are evident on this historic property, according to the African American Settlement Historic Commission. Here, as Tulla shared, archaeologists, using ground penetrating radar, have discovered clues that the site could in fact be a formal burial ground. Discovery can only go so far, however, as Tulla said the cemetery is located on what is now the edge of a marsh, which has eroded over time. all things fall
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