Pollen analysis of three seventeenth-century lead coffins

Three lead covered wooden coffins containing the remains of a man, a woman, and a child were found during excavations inside the foundation of the 17th-Century Jesuit Chapel at Historic St. Mary's City, Maryland. Pollen analysis of physical samples and alcohol swabs from the coffins was complicated by pollen from agricultural produce stored with the coffin structural materials, the natural background pollen rain, and pollen from soil disturbance plants. The absence of pollen on the man's physical remains and on the interior of his wooden coffin indicates that his death occurred during the winter. Ragweed-type pollen dominated the woman's body and woman's wooden coffin samples, suggesting that she was died during the Fall. Perfectly preserved pine pollen grains in soil placed in the child's wooden coffin to raise the upper portion of the body suggest that the child died and was buried during the Spring. Rosemary sprigs and aster-type pollen found on the woman's chest and pea family pollen found on the woman's lumbar area are interpreted as indicating floral funerary tributes and the practice of traditional English burial rituals.