The Archaeology of the Green Point Burial Grounds Project

From 1652, VOC policy at Cape Town, their new trading station, was to bury their dead within the walls of their original fort, located near today’s Castle of Good Hope. By December 1677, population pressure dictated a change in this policy; the grounds of the Dutch Reformed Church on Adderley Street became the official cemetery of the settlement. By 1720, a larger burial ground was identified on the outskirts of town in what is now the suburb Green Point. These formal burial grounds were exclusive, regulated and only available to members of the Dutch Reformed Church: practitioners of other faiths, paupers, slaves and unidentified corpses were excluded and had to be buried in “informal” graves elsewhere. This practice is depicted in the Schumacher panorama from 1776.
As the town grew, in the early 19th Century, more space was needed for residential and business premises. The now “forgotten” unmarked burial grounds in the Green Point area were sold, subdivided and built on.
Poor regulation of burial practices in officially designated sites, such as Church cemeteries, led to increased concerns for hygiene. Added to increasing urbanization, this culminated in the Disused Cemeteries Act of 1902. A new, more remote, burial ground was designated for all burials, new and old. The Green Point cemeteries were disinterred and the land was sold off on condition it was only used for educational, recreational or charitable purposes.

This long and complex history of burial patterns has been repeatedly and dramatically revealed through archaeological projects that have arisen due to gentrification of the area (Cobern Street 1995, Anglican cemetery 1996, Marina residential site 2000, Prestwich Street 2002). The earlier projects were often discovered accidentally, but have served to highlight the importance of this area and its surrounds. The Archaeology Contracts Office at the University of Cape Town, which conducted the excavations at these sites, was awarded a substantial grant by the National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund to study the cultural remains associated with these burials.

OBJECTIVES
This project aims to create a searchable database, available to the public and reseachers via the internet. It will include specific archaeological data and archivally researched historical context as well as a GIS component locating each burial in geographic and positional context. Using these tools, the project will reveal lost histories and show how the social history of this highly diverse society is reflected in its burial practices.

RESULTS
A database is being developed, revealing lost histories and shine new light on social history of the 18th and 19th century in South Africa.