STABLE ISOTOPIC RECONSTRUCTION OF DIET AND RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY IN A POSTBELLUM AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY IN RURAL GEORGIA

Abstract

Despite popular belief, the Great Migration following the Civil War was not a singular event but a long-term demographic phenomenon marked by freed African Americans returning to their natal communities or establishing new communities elsewhere and was presaged by smallerscale movements of African Americans between different regions of the Emancipation-era South. This study analyzes carbon and oxygen (δ13C, δ18O) stable isotope ratios in enamel carbonate from 34 individuals recovered from the Avondale Burial Place, an Emancipation-era cemetery, in Macon, Georgia, in order to reconstruct residential origin and early-life diet and examine whether these individuals immigrated to the site from elsewhere in the South. Carbon isotope results suggest mixed C3/C4 agro-pastoral subsistence rather than a reliance on C4 products such as corn and corn-fed livestock as suggested by historical accounts. Oxygen isotope results suggest that the majority of individuals buried in the Avondale Burial Place were likely born in the area as well; in comparison with other isotopic studies from postbellum contexts, these results support the interpretation that the Great Migration was a gradual process with varying impacts in different areas. Interestingly, a sex-based divergence in both carbon and oxygen isotope values during childhood suggests differences in diet and water consumption possibly related to divergent gender roles. Overall, these results indicate that despite continued hardships, the members of this community consisted of local residents, and they do not indicate the presence of migrant individuals; this isotopic analysis, therefore, contributes to a growing body of bioarchaeological research reconstructing the lost and varied histories of postbellum African American communities.