Jose L. Marrero-Rosado and Sabrina Agarwal
In 1855 Puerto Rico faced an epidemic of cholera that killed thousands of inhabitants. In San Juan, the steady raise in deaths led to a shortage of burial grounds for the deceased, so a choleric mass grave was developed in the outskirts of the Cementerio Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzi.Today, this area is part of a National Park Service (NPS) San Juan National Historic Site (SJNHS) trail that goes around the city walls. Time, weather, and people walking in the area have eroded the landscape in this site, and human bones are now on the surface. The UC Berkeley-led Proyecto Bioarqueológico del Viejo San Juan was developed to recover the human remains found in this forgotten mass grave, to learn who these people were, and to rebury the remains in a safe space.