Jerome S. Handler

1982    (R. S. Corruccini, J. S. Handler,  R. Mutaw, and F. W. Lange), Osteology of a Slave Burial Population From Barbados, West lndies. Amer. Jl. of Phy. Anthrop. 59: 443-59

A unique seventeenth-nineteenth century slave cemetery population from Newton plantation, Barbados, allows examination of craniodental characters in relation to ethnohistorical data. Age-at-death estimates suggest life expectancy at birth of 29 years and low infant mortality; historical demography, however, suggests life expectancy of 20 years and very high infant mortality. Tooth decay, bilateral tooth loss, periodontal disease, root hypercementosis, and severe enamel hypoplasia are high in frequency. The teeth yield evidence of such cultural practices as pipe-smoking and incisor mutilation. Several skeletal features reflect periodic near-starvation. Directional and fluctuating dental asymmetry, relative tooth size, and hypoplasia distribution suggest slaves experienced considerable weaning trauma; metabolic stress at this time exceeded that of prenatal and immediate postnatal periods. Odontometrics and dental and cranial nonmetric traits indicate that modern Blacks are intermediate between the ancestral slaves and modern Whites but more similar to the latter, suggesting effects of environmental covariance exceed those of genetic admixture. Nonmetric trait distributions show nonrandom patterns according to area of burial in the cemetery,
a possible result of family segregation.

Osteology of a Slave Burial Population From Barbados, West lndies

1982    Slave revolts and conspiracies in seventeenth-century Barbados. Nieuwe West-Indische Gids–New West Indian Guide 56: 5-43.

The main purpose of this paper is to document and describe the major forms and incidents of collective slave resistance, or group actions or intentions of violence, against white authority during the formative years of Barbadian slave society. In addition, I seek to indicate some of the collective responses of whites to such resistance: the reprisals against slaves alleged to have been involved in conspiracies or other incidents; the major legislative enactments passed in the aftermath of real or imagined conspiracies; and incidents and alleged conspiracies which reflected the continuing fear of whites over the possibility of large-scale slave revolts.

Slave revolts and conspiracies in seventeenth-century Barbados

1982    (J. S. Handler, R. S. Corruccini,  R. Mutaw), Tooth Mutilation in the Caribbean: Evidence from a Slave Burial Population in Barbados. Jl. of Human Evolution 11: 297-313

Dental mutilation on slave burials excavated from a sugar plantation cemetery on the Caribbean island of Barbados reflects on the question of African slaves and their New World born slave descendants perpetuating this widespread African practice in the New World. Physical anthropological and ethnohistorical evidence from Barbados and other areas leads to the tentative conclusion that dental mutilation (and body scarification) disappeared among New World Black slaves. Reasons relating to adaptive responses to the institution of slavery, and changes in esthetic values as a result of the creolization process, are offered to help account for this disappearance.

Tooth Mutilation in the Caribbean: Evidence from a Slave Burial Population in Barbados