Bones Found At WM Are Canine, Not Human

By Amber Lester Friday, September 03, 2010

Two unmarked graves found at William & Mary contained dog remains from two centuries ago. Unidentified bones found on the campus of William & Mary last month belong to dogs, according to the William & Mary Center for Archaeological Research. The bones, originally thought to be young children, were discovered in two unmarked graves on the William & Mary campus July 13.

The graves were found by WMCAR under the east end of James Blair Drive between the King and Queen Gate and the rear of Tucker Hall. When the bones were found, WMCAR was monitoring the removal of pavement on James Blair Drive, part of historic campus that dates back to the founding of the college in 1693, when the remains were found.

At the time of the discovery, WMCAR Director Joe Jones said the burials seemed to be very young children, possibly infants. On Friday, WMCAR announced the bones were canines, likely interred two centuries ago.

Researchers initially guessed the graves belonged to children because the graves were rectangular shafts, consistent with human burials, and were aligned east and west, as tradition dictates in Christian burials. “When we first identified the site, we treated the remains as human because they were buried like people,” Jones said in a press release. He said that whenever suspected human remains are uncovered, protocol dictates archaeological work cease and the find be reported to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

With the state’s approval, the contents of the graves were removed from the sites behind Tucker Hall and take to WMCAR’s campus labs. The piping project on James Blair Drive then resumed.

Each grave contained only a handful of remains dispersed through the soil, with most individual pieces smaller than a fingernail. WMCAR faunal expert Elizabeth Monroe was able to determine the bones’ origin only after removing the soil.

While the bones’ origin was not expected, WMCAR maintains the discovery is still notable. The graves, dated to the late 17th to mid-18th century, are the only representations of formal dog interment they’ve found from the Colonial period.

“I don’t know of any instance of the formal, intentional interment of animals in the 18th century, either dogs or cats,” said Joanne Bowen, a research professor in the college’s Department of Anthropology and a zooarchaeologist with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. “We find them in the 19th century. But in the Colonial period, people didn’t think of their dogs and cats in the same way we do now.”

Excavations of prehistoric Native American sites have sometimes yielded dog burials, but those are typically oval-shaped and do not align east-west, as dictated by Christian custom, Jones said.

Read more about the discovery of the graves here.