“You Couldn’t Identify Your Grandmother If She Were in that Party”: The Bioarchaeology of Postmortem Investigation at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery

Abstract

This research presents the historical, demographic, archaeological, and osteological evidence used to examine postmortem investigation represented among individuals from the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery recovered during archaeological investigations in the summer of 2013. As of 2013, four locations on the Milwaukee County Grounds in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, have been identified as cemeteries representing the burial of more than 7000 individuals. Three of these cemeteries are located on the periphery of the Milwaukee County Regional Medical Center and remain undisturbed. The fourth cemetery, utilized between 1882 and 1925, is in a developed area and was archaeologically excavated in 1991 and 1992 and again in 2013. The most recent excavations revealed coffin burial locations that produced a minimum of 665 individuals including 381 adults and 284 subadults. This research provides an osteoarchaeological profile for three types of medical investigation: legal autopsy, dissection, and medical specimen use. The conflict between the practice of anatomization and the social mandate for respectful burial produces these distinct osteoarchaeological signatures.