Archaeology and Bioarchaeology of Anatomical Dissection at a Nineteenth-Century Army Hospital in San Francisco

An archaeological site that tells a story of structural
violence in medical researchIn 2010, a pit containing over 4,000 human skeletal
elements was discovered at the site of the former Army hospital at Point San Jose in
San Francisco. Local archaeologists determined that the bones,
which were found alongside medical waste artifacts from the hospital, were
remains from anatomical dissections conducted in the 1870s. As no records of
these dissections exist, this volume turns to historical, archaeological, and
bioarchaeological analysis to understand the function of the pit and the
identities of the people represented in it. In these essays, contributors show
how the remains discovered are postmortem manifestations of social inequality, evidence
that nineteenth-century surgical and anatomical research benefited from and
perpetuated structural violence against marginalized individuals.

A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past:

Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen