Historical and Chemical Traces of an Ozark Cemetery for Enslaved African-Americans: A Study of Silhouette Burials in Benton County, Arkansas

The identification of human graves in situations where there is little or no evidence of skeletal material or coffins has been a problem for archaeologists. In the spring of 1998, the Arkansas Archaeological Survey was hired to find the location of the “lost” Anderson family slave cemetery on property slated for a new airport. Field methods included front end loader blading and hand excavated units. The location of the slave cemetery on a low knoll in an agricultural floodplain was only identifiable by three features of disturbed soil thought to be grave-fill and the chemical remains of human burials. One feature contained a light colored stain identified as the archaeological phenomenon referred to variously as a ghost, silhouette, shadow, or degraded burial. In an attempt to confirm human burial by soil analysis, chemical tests were run on a limited number of samples for total digestion and exchangeable levels of elements present in human bodies. This study examines several elements that previous investigators have suggested as reliable indicators for silhouette burials. Because of frequent inundation and the addition of phosphorus to the field as a fertilizer, only the ratio of Zn/Cu is indicative of possible human burial. Zn/Cu ratios show clearly elevated levels at burial depth in the suspected cemetery features relative to control samples.