历史生物学研究所研讨会探讨奴隶制和记忆
迈克尔·布莱基（Michael Blakey）在联邦礼堂（Commonwealth Auditorium）看着台下的观众，谈到了征求许可的重要性。
“Asking permission remains a central part of the practice of archaeology,” he said. “It’s the central difference between collaboration and exploitation, democracy and slavery, love and rape.”
布莱基在为期半天的研讨会上做了开场发言，研讨会的主题是“奴隶制考古学与散居者的记忆”。 The Nov. 29 event was sponsored by William & Mary’s Institute for Historical Biology, the 非洲研究 Program and the university’s Department of 人类学. Blakey is the director of the Institute for Historical Biology as well as NEH Professor in William & Mary’s Department of 人类学.
他谈到了自己作为纽约非洲人墓地主任的工作，这是他在霍华德大学任教时开始的。 He then introduced a number of symposium participants, individuals, he said, who have “looked at the remnants of slavery from Richmond to Rio, from New York to Dakar, from Charles City County to Washington, D.C.”
特邀嘉宾是巴西国立博物馆/联邦大学的Tania Andrade Lima。 她是发现瓦隆戈码头的首席考古学家。 该码头是在筹备奥运会期间出土的，现在是联合国教科文组织遗址的候选地。 Valongo码头是估计有50万非洲奴隶进入巴西的卸货地点。
研讨会包括另外两位威廉玛丽考古学家的工作。 人类学助理教授约瑟夫·l·琼斯（Joseph L. Jones）讨论了他在里士满东马歇尔圣井项目（East Marshall St. Well Project）的工作。 Blakey presented the work of Autumn R. Barrett, co-director of the Remembering Slavery, Resistance and Freedom Project and senior research associate at the Institute for Historical Biology. 巴雷特不能参加讨论会。
Blakey讨论了基于公众参与的考古学范式的形成。 他说，支持合作客户模式的概念来自于1991年开始的纽约非洲墓地项目。
Blakey是非洲墓地项目的负责人，该项目从曼哈顿下城一块5.5英亩的土地上提取了419具人类骨骼遗骸，这块土地曾被指定为美国政府大楼。
The proposed federal building would sit atop a portion of a 17th- and 18th- century graveyard: “It originally contained an estimated 15,000 burials of the enslaved Africans who built the city and the economy of New York,” Blakey said.
The construction was halted by what Blakey called “enormous and extended protest over the burial ground’s desecration by the U.S. government and its archaeologists.” The protest, largely by members of the African American community, resulted in a smaller government building being built— and a national monument within the U.S. National Park service and visitor center commemorating the site.
The protest also brought in a new set of archaeologists, led by Blakey, a group that developed what he termed “publically engaged archaeology” at the African Burial Ground project.
他解释说，公众参与考古学的概念是基于这样一种假设，即后代社区的活着的成员有权尊重和纪念他们的死者。
“Consistent with the simultaneous demands of indigenous peoples worldwide, we instituted a program of research on this basis, requiring scholars to ask permission of the descendants to help tell a story of themselves in which they were interested,” Blakey said.
他告诉与会者，在纽约非洲人墓地形成的委托模式已经被广泛采用，一些相关的术语和概念也被广泛采用。 One central idea, Blakey said, is the identification of a project’s “ethical client,” representatives of a descendant community (or their surrogates). He noted that the term “descendant community” has entered the working lexicon of archaeologists worldwide, as have other concepts.
“Even the now-conventional term ‘enslaved African,’ as a replacement for the term ‘slave,’ came through the project from the African American community with which we were engaged,” he said.
And Blakey stressed that the science didn’t suffer for the sake of community collaboration. He said his group produced a 2,500-page 报告 published in 2009 that “included the most sophisticated bioarcheological analysis yet conducted anywhere.
“As director, I know I strain humility with that comment. But we all met on the project here in May, all the researchers from 25 years before, and we couldn’t find anything that was more sophisticated than what we produced,” he said. “It would be unfair to them and to all those who circled around us to make it possible to say anything else.”
约瑟夫·琼斯（Joseph Jones）是参与非洲墓地项目的研究人员之一，他在霍华德大学（Howard University）读本科时就开始担任骨学技术人员。 琼斯检查了从骨骼残骸中找到的牙齿，试图通过微量元素和稳定同位素来追踪这些人的地理起源。 他说，铅的存在对确定地理来源特别有帮助，因为接触铅在殖民时期的美国比西非更普遍。
作为历史生物学研究所的一员，琼斯在参与东马歇尔圣井项目时，将非洲墓地客户模式的概念带到了里士满。
琼斯在研讨会上概述了这个项目。 这口井是1994年在弗吉尼亚联邦大学校园内建造一座建筑时发现的。 Jones played a video documentary by VCU scholar Shawn Utsey telling the story of the well, which was found to contain the remains of more than 50 individuals — all African in origin.
这口井被发现是弗吉尼亚医学院的解剖学家们用来埋葬尸体的地方。 The video narration included a description of how a MCV employee named Chris Baker acted as “resurrection man,” robbing graves to supply material for dissections in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Jones said the African Burial Ground and the East Marshall St. Well projects are examples of a new kind of anthropology whose practitioners identify themselves as members of the “decolonizing generation,” whose aim is “to rescue anthropology from its colonial moorings.”
He explained that both the New York burial ground and the well project in Richmond also incorporated the concept of “surrogate ancestry” — a group of people who can be entrusted “to speak for those who can’t speak for himself.” 本着这种精神，他说，Well项目召集了五次社区咨询会议来讨论这项工作。
“What’s important is that the goal of the consultations was not simply to inform — that was one goal, to inform people about the well so they knew as much as possible,” Jones said. “Secondarily, it was to solicit input as to what should be the disposition of these remains.”
社区咨询会议形成了一个由10人组成的油井规划委员会，琼斯说，这个委员会作为油井中人们的代理后代，帮助指导研究，同时维护受试者的尊严。 他在研讨会上说，这项研究的一套建议草案正在定稿。
Jones说，油井规划委员会详细讨论了最终处理油井残骸的问题。
“We talked about Evergreen Cemetery in Richmond, where many prominent African Americans are buried, and we discussed some other sites,” he said. “But we started, and came back to, the African Burial Ground as the final resting ground for these remains.”
由于秋·巴雷特无法参加研讨会，布莱基发表了她的报告，巴雷特于8月在日本京都举行的世界考古大会上发表了报告。 它围绕着她作为纪念奴隶制，抵抗和自由项目的联合主任的工作展开。
“The project went around the state, asking African Americans and Euro Americans how they felt about slavery and its interpretation,” Blakey explained, noting that the 记忆项目, as it became know, followed the New York African Burial Ground’s community engagement model.
The 记忆项目 was formed in 2010, as a response to the Virginia General Assembly’s Martin Luther King Commission’s charge to create a database of Virginia burial grounds that held the remains of enslaved people.
“The Commission intended to use this database to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation in 2013, by placing American flags on the marked and unmarked graves of men, women and children who died enslaved,” Blakey said.
The 记忆项目 conducted a set of discussions with members of Virginia communities in 2011 and 2012, sessions that produced a number of revelations.
“We learned that the process of engagement and the dialogues that emerged were considered by participants as meaningful commemorations in themselves,” Barrett’s presentation read. “We did not expect this.”
Barrett’s presentation continued that proposals for exhibits and lectures were well received by discussion participants. “The idea of placing flags on the graves of enslaved people who were not offered citizenship, however, was not,” Blakey read.
研讨会以小组讨论和观众问答结束。小组成员包括史密森尼国家非裔美国人历史博物馆馆长Paul Gardulla； Ibrahima Thiaw, Université Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar, Senegal; 乔治华盛顿大学的Stephen Lubkemann，他们都是奴隶沉船项目的参与者。 Other panelists were Ana Edwards of the Sacred Ground Reclamation Project; Janet “Queen Nzinga” Taylor, East Marshall St. Well Project; Brian Palmer and Erin Holloway, Make the Ground Talk documentary.