African American Archaeology: Born at Kingsley Plantation?

Page from the book.

Today while working on a research project I came across the book Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800 by Leland Ferguson. To my surprise, Kingsley Plantation was mentioned as the place where archaeologist and anthropologist Charles H. Fairbanks conducted professional excavations of slave cabins for the first time in the US. I immediately added the following to his Wikipedia page:

His 1967-1969 excavations on the slave cabins at Kingsley Plantation, Fort George Island, Florida—the southernmost of the Sea Islands—were the first of their kind in the United States. Undertaken to "learn more about slave life," he called his practice "Plantation Archaeology," and for more than a decade the graduate program he led at the University of Florida was the only one in the nation with a concentration in African American archaeology.

This also led me to write the folks at Kingsley Plantation regarding the 2010 discovery of a graveyard under the Witness Oak. I wanted to know if any new information had emerged as a result of data interpretation. Shauna Ray Allen, Chief of Resource Stewardship and Partnerships at Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve and Fort Caroline National Memorial quickly replied to my email stating that:

• The work at the University of Florida on analyzing and documenting the wealth of materials uncovered at Kingsley Plantation is...ongoing
• The discovery occurred during the 2010 University of Florida archaeology field school and...we have determined that the burials are Kingsley-era. The remains have not been linked to the Kingsley family other than by time and proximity. We have not conducted any DNA testing on the remains. 
• The civic engagement on the discovery continues and no decision has been made on marking the site at this time. There is a need to conduct additional testing to determine the approximate extent of the site...

I'll keep trying to keep apprised of the happenings at Kingsley Plantation as best as possible. After all, the Kingsley story —which in my case, crossed oceans—was passed on to me and those of my generation, and remains important to the Kingsley descendants of Mayorazgo de Koka, Kingsley's estate in Haiti.