LAKEPORT— In 2011, construction workers uncovered the remains of a woman in an abandoned lot in Queens, New York. The level of preservation was so superior, witnesses first assumed they had stumbled on a recent homicide. Forensic analysis revealed the body belonged to a young African American woman who died in the 19th century. Buried in an elaborate and expensive iron coffin, she raised questions about the time and what it was like for free African American people in the North before the Civil War.
The public is invited to attend a special free program presented by Scott Warnasch, forensic archaeologist, who will discuss his work and that of a multi-disciplinary team of experts that was assembled to study the remains, coffin and burial costume. He will show the film, “The Woman in the Iron Coffin,” an episode from the PBS series Secrets of the Dead.
The program, sponsored by the Lake County Friends of Mendocino College and Mendocino College Lake Center, is on Sunday, October 20 at 2 p.m. in Room 7050 at Mendocino College Lake Center, 2565 Parallel Drive in Lakeport.
Warnasch has been a professional archaeologist for over 25 years, working in and teaching archaeological methodology in Europe and the Americas. From 2005 through 2015 he was a member of the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner’s (OCME) Forensic Anthropology Unit and was Senior Anthropologist of the OCME’s World Trade Center Operations.
During his tenure, his primary duties involved directing the extensive victims’ recovery excavations conducted at the World Trade Center site between 2006 and 2014. Warnasch also conducted and supervised several crime scene recoveries and mass fatality incidents within the five New York boroughs.
Since leaving the OCME in 2015, Warnasch has become a consultant and is dedicating most of his time to writing his first book, American Mummies: The Industrial Birth of the Eternal Dead, about his research into the lives of three mid-19th century iron coffin mummies he has discovered, including the subject of his local talk.
The Lake County Friends of Mendocino College is an affiliate of the Mendocino College Foundation whose mission is to educate leaders, foster intellectual growth and enrich lives by creating opportunities to invest in a better future for our students and communities.
Program information is available from the Lake Center, (707) 263-4944.
