Undergraduates enrolled in Prof. Jiménez’s Principles of Archaeology (CLST 144) visited Geer Cemetery on Sunday, Nov. 14, 2021, in the context of the project "Durham Black Burial Grounds Collaboratory", funded through the Duke Endowment to study “Reckoning with Race, Racism, and the History of the American South” (https://facultyadvancement.duke.edu/new-faculty-research-explore-race-south-diverse-angles).
Students learned about the segregation of cemeteries, Durham’s African American community, funerary monuments, and how archaeologists read difficult inscriptions, use georeferencing methods to establish the location of monuments and create 3D models using photogrammetry with guest professors Adam Rosenblatt (International Comparative Studies), Ed Triplett (Art, Art History and Visual Studies) and Andrew Tharler (Thompson Writing Program), as well as Duke’s Archaeology graduate students Antonio LoPiano, Tara Wells, Danielle Vander Horst and Andrew Welser.
A descendant and member of the Association “Friends of Geer Cemetery” (http://friendsofgeercemetery.org), Michael Williams, gave the closing remarks and told the students how his ancestors arrived from Stagville to Durham.
