Portfolio

The Institute for Historical Biology is engaged in a variety of projects involving bioarchaeological analysis, public engagement, and critiques of archaeological and anthropological scholarship on race and history.

Remembering Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom

In partnership with the Lincoln subcommittee of the Martin Luther King Memorial Commission of the Virginia General Assembly, this collaborative project is engaging communities throughout Virginia to develop memorial events, exhibits, and/or projects for the Sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. We seek to honor the rich and complex lives, histories, contributions, innovations, and sacrifices of enslaved Africans and African Americans. More detail on this project is available on the Remembering Project Facebook page.

Scholarship on the Social Construction of Race

The IHB has contributed to the exhibition and website entitled Race: Are We So Different?, developed by the American Anthropological Association and the Science Museum of Minnesota. These resources are meant to foster an informed public discussion of “race” and racism in the United States. The exhibition has been on view at 33 locations to date including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History from June 18, 2011 to January 8, 2012. A version of the exhibition is currently installed at the Miami Museum of Science in Miami, FL and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA. Upcoming locations for the exhibition include: The North Museum in Lancaster, PA; History Colorado in Denver, CO; The Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, IL, and The Muhammed Ali Center in Louisville, KY. For more information about upcoming and previous locations, please see the Race: Are We So Different? tour schedule.

New York African Burial Ground Project

The IHB conducted research and consulted in conjunction with the National Park Service, national scholars, and members of the public to develop the African Burial Ground Visitor Center at the African Burial Ground National Monument. The IHB along with Howard University produced the New York African Burial Ground Final Skeletal Biology Report submitted to the General Services Administration in 2004. The New York African Burial Ground: Unearthing the African Presence in Colonial New York series published by Howard University Press in 2009 is the 2400 page academic volume. Other projects to which the IHB contributed include the Sankofa 3 and Sankofa 4 interdisciplinary scholarly conferences that developed the interpretative framework for the African Burial Ground.

Bioarchaeological Inventory Analysis and Interpretation

The Institute for Historical Biology has been contracted by organizations to inventory, analyze, and interpret historical human skeletal remains as descendants request for research or memorializing actions.

Nottaway repatriation, assisting the American Indian Resource Center 2023
Collaboration, First Baptist Church, Nassau Street, Colonial Williamsburg, Department of Archaeology 2022-2024, Joseph Jones, Ph.D., Lead Bioarchaeologist
Collaborator, NAGPRA Compliance Project, Department of Anthropology under National Park Service (Ashley Spivey, PI/Director, 2020-2022)

Museum and Institutional Outreach

The IHB works with major institutions on policies and projects of historic preservation and ethics.

The Commission for the Ethical Treatment of Human Remains, American Anthropological Association, Contributor
Ethical Returns: External Consultation, to inform heads of branches of the Smithsonian Institution and international participants on ethics of returning diverse objects and ancestral remains
Participant, Summit on Teaching About Slavery, National Trust for Historical Preservation and James Madison's Montpelier, Orange, Virginia, 2018
Participant, Design process for Museum of Black Civilizations, Ministry of Culture, Dakar, Senegal, 2016
Project Specialist for the National Park Service, African Burial Ground Interpretive Center Design/Build Project, New York, NY, 2006-2009
Member (M. Blakey), Scholarly Advisory Committee, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.,2005-

Descendant Community Engagement

The IHB advises diverse community groups seeking to protect cemetaries and sites of memory. The IHB helps descendant communities organize.

Howard University-Smithsonian Institution Repatriation Project, 2024-2027
Cedar Creek/Belle Grove, Shenandoah public engagement, NPS 2023- 2025
Descendant Communities Social Innovation Lab, Smith Center, NMAAHC, Smithsonian Institution, May 16-18, 2023
Advisor, Public Engagement, Architectural Planning Competition, Africatown, Mobile, AL (2019-2023)
Brown Grove community engagement, 2021
Angela Site, Jamestown Settlement, National Park Service, 2019 – (Joseph Jones, PI)
Advisors, Belmont Slave Cemetery Preservation, Leesburg, Virginia 2017
Advisor, Moses Cemetery Activism, Macedonia Baptist Church, Bethesda, Maryland, 2016-
Consultant, Public engagement for James Madison’s Montpelier, Orange, Virginia, 2014-
Consultants, East Marshall Street Well Project, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 2012-