Professor Carrel Cowan-Ricks’ Legacy at Clemson University and the 1990s Archaeological Dig for the African American Burial Ground in Woodland Cemetery

March 6, 2023

This is a special post re-published from the March 2023 newsletter. Read the full March 2023 newsletter. 

By Alleyia Bailey, Undergraduate Research Assistant

Carrel Cowan-Ricks began her journey in Historical Archaeology in 1980 when she enrolled at Wayne State University to study Anthropology. By 1990 Cowan-Ricks entered the Anthropology Ph.D. program at Wayne State with a desire to study African American cemeteries and burial customs. At this time, Cowan-Ricks was one of three African American women with a graduate degree in archaeology in the United States and very likely the world.

Clemson University hired Cowan- Ricks in 1991 to locate unmarked African American Burials in Woodland Cemetery. These burials include the enslaved peoples of the Fort Hill Plantation; sharecroppers, domestic workers, and tenant farmers who worked at Fort Hill during Reconstruction; and convicted laborers who constructed the early buildings on Clemson’s campus. To aid her in the search for unmarked burials, Cowan-Ricks recruited volunteers from the history, education, engineering, and architecture departments, along with African American high school and middle school students, and local community members.

During the fall of 1991, Cowan- Ricks and her team surveyed the entire west slope of Woodland Cemetery to locate evidence of burials. Her plan did not involve disinterring any possible graves but finding evidence of burial shafts. Cowan-Ricks noted that the purpose of the Cemetery Hill Archaeological Project was to memorialize, honor, and protect the enslaved and convict burials on Cemetery Hill. During these excavations, the team uncovered a number of artifacts, including indigenous projectile points and shell casings fired at military funerals.

During the 1991-1993 excavations Cowan-Ricks concluded the burial ground was much larger than anyone ever thought and that she would need to dig deeper to locate the graves; thus, she would need more time to locate the burials. However, in 1993, Cowan-Ricks was fired from Clemson University due to budget cuts. She would likely have found the graves if she had been granted more time. Between July 2020 and January 2022, more than 500 unmarked burials believed to be those of African Americans were located in the cemetery using ground penetrating radar.

In addition to locating the unmarked burials, Cowan-Ricks also aimed to reconstruct the population of the enslaved peoples during the Fort Hill period. She noted that census data at that time severely under counted the amount of enslaved individuals on the Fort Hill property and wanted an accurate representation of the population. Cowan-Ricks also researched the traditions and customs of the enslaved people of Fort Hill and gave a presentation entitled “African American Plantation Culture” that detailed the daily lives of enslaved people. She noted African American cultivation practices, pottery making and styles, ritual and worship, and day-to-day tasks they would have performed.

Cowan-Ricks continued to show her passion for archaeology after her time at Clemson University. She served on the Detroit Museum’s Black Historical sites committee and at the Society for Historical Archaeology. During her time at the Detroit Museum, she organized a symposium entitled “Is Historical Archaeology White? Prospects for Minority Contribution.” She continued to push the status quo of what traditional archaeology looked like in the United States at that time and advocated for more African American and women voices in the field. Cowan-Ricks also contributed to many archaeological projects, including the Center for Field Research in Watertown, Massachusetts. During this time, Cowan-Ricks’ battle with Lupus was growing stronger, and on January 11, 1997, she lost this battle with the disease.

Cowan-Ricks was a groundbreaking archaeologist who was rewriting what archaeology looked like during this time. Cowan-Ricks also represented a number of people while practicing in the field; she has given strength to aspiring archaeologists who are African American, women, and those who are battling a chronic condition.

One of her life missions was to add more African American and women voices into the archaeological narrative. With her work, we have the knowledge about Woodland Cemetery that we do today. Cowan-Ricks continues to inspire each and every one of us to protect the sacred space that is Cemetery Hill.

Currently, Dr. David Markus and I have been working on cataloging the artifacts recovered from the 1991-1993 excavations that Cowan-Ricks led. The artifacts had been uncleaned and not cataloged, only being stored in plastic bags that were not useful in protecting the artifacts. This process has included cleaning all of the artifacts and completing an inventory. Dr. Markus and I have also assigned the artifacts with field specimen numbers that will aid in finding a specific artifact. We have also upgraded all the artifact bags and assigned the artifacts with specific tags. Our hope for this project is to fully process the artifacts to better understand what was found during the excavations on Cemetery Hill.