ST. CROIX — A lecture to divulge the findings of archaeological investigations at the\u00a0Estate Bethlehem Old Works, a sugar plantation which operated\u00a0from\u00a0the early Danish colonial period until the factory closed in 1966, will be presented on Thursday\u00a0at 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Christiansted National Historic Site, the National Park Service announced today. The lecture will be presented by Dr. Steve Lenik.<\/p>\n
In 2002, archaeologists from the Virgin Islands State Historic Preservation Office recorded a “lost” enslaved African cemetery and laborer village in the National Guard armory at Bethlehem, revealing evidence of mortuary practices and daily life of the enslaved in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Returning to the site in 2017, professors and students from St. Mary’s College of Maryland continued archaeological and historical research, and interviewed people who lived and worked this plantation, toward making it more accessible to the public. Archaeology at Bethlehem broadens our understandings of the laborer experience at this important Crucian cultural site and aids in the effective management.<\/p>\n
Steve Lenik is an historical archaeologist of the African diaspora whose has done fieldwork at plantations, missions, and military installations throughout the Caribbean, including St. Croix, St. John, St. Thomas, Dominica, and Jamaica.\u00a0 He received his M.A. from the\u00a0University of South Carolina in 2004, with a thesis titled “Archaeological Investigations of Afro-Cruzan Identity at Estate Bethlehem, St. Croix, U. S. Virgin Islands,” and a PhD from Syracuse University in 2010 with a study of a French Jesuit mission in the Commonwealth of Dominica.<\/p>\n
Currently, he teaches in the\u00a0Anthropology\u00a0Department at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, having previously held the post of Lecturer in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of the West Indies, Mona.\u00a0\u00a0Among his publications are articles in\u00a0Journal of Social Archaeology,\u00a0Ethnohistory,\u00a0International Journal of Historical Archaeology, and\u00a0Historical Archaeology, and he is co-editor of the 2017 Routledge volume\u00a0Material Cultures of Slavery and Abolition in the British Caribbean.<\/p>\n
The Fort parking lot will be open until 7:00 p.m.<\/p>\n
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Feature Image:\u00a0Sugar farmers in Bethlehem, St. Croix in the 1940s. (Credit: Wikipedia)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ST. CROIX — A lecture to divulge the findings of archaeological investigations at the\u00a0Estate Bethlehem Old Works, a sugar plantation which operated\u00a0from\u00a0the early Danish colonial period until the factory closed in 1966, will be presented on Thursday\u00a0at 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Christiansted National Historic Site, the National Park Service announced today. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":54338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[628,191,147],"tags":[7145,7146],"yoast_head":"\n