The Contributions of Community Engagement, Faculty Networks, and STEM Student Collaboration to Noninvasively Identifying and Documenting Unmarked Burial Sites

这个没有标记的埋葬项目是科学家和社区成员合作保护和重建墓地及其区域文化历史的一个很好的例子。该项目的目标是：a)识别无标记墓地，以便放置标记以纪念埋葬在那里的人；b)确定未来埋葬的空间；c)记录已知的无标记墓地的埋葬地点。实现这些目标的研究涉及社区和死者的家庭成员，学生和受过应用文化和法医人类学以及历史考古学训练的人类学家。学生通过学习如何将社区记忆和科学事实联系起来，同时接受文化、民族历史、考古和非侵入性法医方法的培训和学习，这些方法不会对人体造成干扰或暴露人类遗骸，从而获得发展未来职业和在人类学领域获得相关职业的实践经验。该项目还开发了档案视听文件，以保存社区的地方和历史知识以及家庭成员的生活故事。关于这种新颖的多方法方法的研究结果与具有部分或不存在文件的类似可疑无标记埋葬项目具有重要相关性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The unmarked burial project is an excellent example of scientists and community members collaborating to preserve and reconstruct cemeteries and their regional cultural history. The project objectives are to a) identify unmarked burials for placing markers to commemorate those buried there, b) identify space for future burials, and c) document who is buried at which unmarked burial for those that are known. Research for fulfilling these objectives engages community and family members of the deceased, students, and anthropologists trained in applied cultural and forensic anthropology, as well as historical archaeology. Students gain hands-on field experience for developing future careers and obtaining related occupational jobs in anthropology through learning how to connect community memory and scientific facts while being trained in and learning the applications of cultural, ethnohistorical, archaeological, and non-invasive forensic methods that do not physically disturb or expose human remains. The project also develops archival audiovisual documentation to preserve the local and historical knowledge of the community and the stories of family members’ lives. The findings regarding this novel multi-method approach have significant relevance for similar suspected unmarked burial projects with partial or non-existent documentation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.