LAWRENCE, NEW ZEALAND—Radio New Zealand reports that eight sets of skeletal remains have been exhumed from a nineteenth-century cemetery in Otago, located on the South Island of New Zealand. Three other possible graves at the site are being investigated. The cemetery was believed to have been cleared of human remains before it was closed in 1997. As part of the Otago Historic Cemeteries Bioarchaeology Project, the team is also excavating a second cemetery in Lawrence where Chinese immigrants and other marginalized people are thought to have been buried. “We want to create a detailed picture of what life was like at the time of the gold rush in the early 1860s,” said Hallie Buckley of the University of Otago. Isotopic and DNA analyses of the bones will be conducted. The remains will eventually be reinterred. For more, go to “World Roundup: New Zealand.”
