Support
The University of New Brunswick partners with Parks Canada in the excavation of human remains from the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site. The site used to be an 18th century settlement of alternatingly French and English settlers, and their placement of one of their cemeteries on the coast and the subsequent coastal erosion that has occurred over the past couple hundred years has put the bodies in danger of eroding into the ocean and washing up on the shore. As such, Dr. Amy Scott (Bioarchaeologist Professor at University of New Brunswick) and Dr. Mallory Moran (Parks Canada Archaeologist) have paired up on a decades-long project to remove all the endangered remains and eventually relocate them to a safer burial area. Each summer a team of archaeological students accompany Dr. Scott and Dr. Moran into the field to excavate more of the remains. This year, I, along with 14 other undergraduate students and 4 graduate students aided in the emergency removal of these remains, which included the careful handling and categorization of bone material and related archaeological material. We also aided in the physical-to-digital analysis and preservation of the site through hand-mapping each burial and the bones within the burial as well as using a total station to geologically map the burial outline as well as remains found. In addition to excavating human remains, it was our responsibility to interact with an educate any public that came out to observe the site. We taught them what we learned ourselves; how to view and treat remains ethically and with respect.