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The research must start out modern, clinical and cold. No one know their names so they're assigned numbers. They're the 427 skeletons of unknown corpses that have been analyzed by the African Burial Ground Project at Howard University.

In June of 1991, these human remains were discovered during archaeological testing for the construction of the Foley Square Federal Office Tower Building in New York City. It was determined that these remains were part of an 18th century graveyard for free and enslaved blacks that at one time occupied seven acres in Lower Manhattan. To the astonishment of nearly all involved, the five acres of land surrounding the city block under construction was determined to be the largest and earliest African burial site in the nation. On February 14th, Professor Michael Blakey of Howard University spoke on the findings of the nine-year project with a lecture, "New York's African Burial Ground and the Struggle for Human Rights." The lecture, organized by the History of Medicine Division, commemorated African American History Month.

Dr. Blakey, director of Howard University's W.M. Cobb Biological Anthropology Laboratory and Project Director of the African Burial Ground Project since 1992, described how the New York burial ground became a spiritual site for the African American community in recent years - a kind of memorial for the nation.

He talked about the multidisciplinary work that goes on at the Cobb Laboratory, where a team of anthropologists, historians, population geneticists, biochemists and others analyze the peoples of the past, their lives and cultures.

In describing the saga of the African Burial Ground, designated the "Negros Burying Ground" in the 18th century, he talked about a final resting place that had probably been used for more than a century. The tale of the persons buried there was a harrowing one but one that must be told, said Dr. Blakey. "It is the right of the descendants to know what slavery was like."

Dr. Michael Blakey (l.) of Howard University with NLM Director Dr. Donald A.B. Lindberg.

In much of the colonial culture, there was a pressing need to convince slaves that they were less than human. They were stripped of names, religion, culture, and so on. Even the right of slaves to bury their dead was at times contested. After two slave rebellions in New York (1712 and 1741), slave owners conceded that, if you wanted to get work out of these people brought in from Africa, you had better let them bury their dead.

Funeral services afford Africans the rare opportunity to assemble together, too. As Dr. Blakey observed, a funeral was as close as the African slaves could get to an "authorized" community. He further discussed how this burial ground saw incidents of grave robbing in the late 18th century, with students of a nearby medical school the apparent culprits. One skeleton displays dissection of its skull. There are missing bodies, and missing coffins. A further indignity perpetrated on those buried in the New York site was that cisterns and privies were dug into the gravesites.

Dr. Blakey described the unique African flavor of some of the gravesites. In some cases, the bodies were laid to rest with their arms crossed, reminiscent of the way the peoples of Ghana lay out their dead. As is the custom in parts of Africa, a meaningful talisman might be placed atop the body, telling a great deal about the circumstances of the deceased. In the African Burial Ground, one child's skeleton was interred with a teardrop-shaped pendant made of pure silver.

By 2001, with 70-80 students and technicians laboring and 25 PhDs adding their considerable talents, all the skeletons at the site have been reconstructed from their fragments. There are many signs of pathologies: enlarged muscle attachments hint at muscle strains, changes in joints suggest very difficult labor. Anemia and malnutrition appear to have taken a toll, although, interestingly, there is no evidence of syphilis - probably because these African slaves did not have intimate contact with Europeans living in New York.

What happens next? If all goes as planned, the remains will be reburied next year. Dr. Blakey noted that there are still political issues to be worked out with the U.S. General Services Administration, which organized the $500 million construction project to take place on the site.