Mississippi: Up to 7,000 bodies from asylum may be in field

STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) – Officials in Mississippi believe the remains of as many as 7,000 former patients at an asylum could be lying in an empty, grassy field on a university campus.

The bodies are buried on the grounds of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson and were discovered during an expansion effort.

In May 2016, university officials established a consortium to exhume the remains and study them.

Anthropologist Molly Zuckerman has the remains of 66 patients already dug up at her lab.

She said by studying the remains anthropologists can see how marginalized populations’ health was directly affected by structural factors like poverty and racism.

Photo Courtesy: Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

Photo description courtesy Associated Press: In this May 9, 2018 photo taken in Starkville, Miss., Mississippi State University anthropologist Molly Zuckerman holds a portion of a mandible extracted from one of the graves unearthed at what was the graveyard of the Mississippi State Asylum in Jackson, Miss. The jaw at left, is from another dig and is used for scale. Officials in Mississippi believe the remains of as many as 7,000 former patients at the asylum could be lying in an empty, grassy field on the university campus. In May 2016, university officials established a consortium to exhume the remains and study them.