An unmarked historic cemetery was discovered at Fort Benning, Georgia, during the construction of the Carmouche Range. Archeologists, physical anthropologists, historians, and an analytical chemist studied the cemetery and the skeletal remains in order to determine the identity of the cemetery, the identity of the people buried in it, and their health, diet, and burial customs. The results of the study suggest that the majority of individuals buried in the cemetery were white settlers who belonged to the Mt. Gilead Baptist Church (established 1832 and dissolved 1849). At least two blacks were buried nearby in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The study employed in-the-field osteological analysis and state-of-the-art trace element and histological aging analyses in the laboratory. One particularly interesting discovery was a very high incidence of otitis mastoidea, an ear infection, which can result in loss of hearing, loss of balance, pain, and in some cases death. Finally, the Mt. Gilead cemetery study demonstrated that the analysis of historic cemeteries by multi-disciplinary teams can provide much useful and interesting information about lifeways in the recent past.
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