Photo by Laurie Burgess / Smithsonian
Researchers from the Smithsonian and Congressional Cemetery sift through contents of the Causten vault in search of skeletal remains and artifacts such as coffin hardware, which underwent stylistic changes during the second half of the 19th-century and may be used to date unmarked burial sites in future excavations. On June 11, ancestors of the Shriver family were reinterred in Historic Congressional Cemetery's restored 1835 Causten vault, a historic burial site analyzed by National Museum of Natural History forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley and a team of researchers. (Photo by Laurie Burgess / Smithsonian)
