BY SPECTRUM NEWS STAFF CALIFORNIA PUBLISHED 9:07 AM PT JUL. 11, 2024. https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/news/2024/07/11/african-american-graves-ucla-

From skateparks to neglected historic sites and marine sanctuaries, UCLA professor Justin Dunnavant set himself on a venturous path at an early age.

UCLA Professor Justin Dunnavant and a group of students, staff, and faculty delve into the Kinsey African American Art & History Collection, an invaluable community resource that sheds light on the African American experience throughout history.

Nat Geo Explorer and archaeologist Justin Dunnavant sits down with Grammy-nominated trumpeter Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah to discuss ancestral memory, creating new instruments, and stretch music—an expansion of jazz.

The Lyons’ family story is one that centers on land, site and action. Together with their community of allies, they were stalwarts for equity, freedom, social justice and progress in a time when the stakes were at their highest. In Land/Site/Legacy, the work of invited speakers, Dr. Justin Dunnavant, Tomashi Jackson, and Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, is connected to notions of land, site specificity, and community. The conversation will consider each of the panelists’ path-breaking work and strategies in visual art, archaeology, music and their intersections.

Justin Dunnavant is Lead Scientist and Principal Investigator on the Nautilus EV voyage investigating the maritime cultural heritage of Hawai’i. The maritime heritage team is comprised of archaeologists, underwater photographers, and educators who will create virtual 3D models of key cultural heritage sites in the region. Using photography, video, field notes, and other evidence, the team will design and post a real-time “digital mosaic” of the trip and create related curriculum for primary and post-secondary classrooms.

The UCLA maritime archaeologist finds a new lens for exploring Black culture through the discovery of lost slave ships — and the secrets they carry.

Some 12.5 million Africans were abducted into slavery from the 16th to 19th centuries. About 1.8 million died in shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean. Justin discusses efforts to find the shipwrecks and better understand these crimes and what we can learn of the victims.

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, European slave traders forcibly uprooted millions of African people and shipped them across the Atlantic in conditions of great cruelty. Today, on the bottom of the world’s oceans lies the lost wrecks of ships that carried enslaved people from Africa to the Americas.

Justin Dunnavant is an Assistant Professor, archaeologist and National Geographic Explorer. Justin shares with Dan the incredible project that he is a part of - a group of specialist black divers who are dedicated to finding and documenting some of the thousands of slave ships wrecked in the Atlantic Ocean during the transatlantic slave trade. They also unearth the history of a former Danish slave colony in the Virgin Islands and discuss Justin’s research about the African Diaspora and Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line.

MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. (WPMI) — Alabama Historical Commission has provided updates on recovery of the Clotilda.

The sediment was screened by SEARCH maritime archaeologists led by co-principal investigator Dr. Justin Dunnavant into a holding tank on board the barge. Screening allows us to recover small artifacts but none were observed today. The sediment will be contained in the holding tank until it can be placed in burlap bags and returned to the vessel.

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll speak with archaeologist Dr. Justin Dunnavant about the environmental impacts of the transatlantic slave trade with a focus on the former Danish West Indies, which are now the US Virgin Islands. Between 1500 and 1875, 4.8 million enslaved Africans were brought to the Caribbean, compared with 389,000 brought to the US. About a million people died in transit.

Justin Dunnavant will be in residence at Occidental College February 16–17. Dunnavant’s current work in the U.S. Virgin Islands investigates the relationship between ecology and enslavement in the former Danish West Indies and will be visiting classes during his residency.

The search for lost slave ships led this diver on an extraordinary journey. Explorer Tara Roberts took up diving to learn about the human side of a tragic era. She wound up connecting with her family’s inspiring past.

Archaeologists and historians use cutting-edge technology to investigate and explore some of the biggest mysteries surrounding the Underground Railroad, a secret network that helped enslaved African Americans escape to freedom.

For many, archaeology means digging up historical artifacts from beneath the ground. But to some, that framework is also violent and colonial. What would it mean to leave ancestors and belongings where they’re found? In this episode, Gabrielle Miller, a PhD student studying African Diaspora Archaeology at the University of Tulsa shares a story about excavations in St. Croix. And Dr. Ayana Flewellen and Dr. Justin Dunnavant discuss how black archaeologists began uncovering sunken slave ships.

National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts witnesses a new type of maritime archaeology under way in Costa Rica, one with a community at its center and young people in the lead. As Tara meets journalist María Suárez Toro and her band of divers, she sees the power of a society shaping its own history. She also hears the tale of rebellions aboard the Danish ships Fredericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus. Tara dives to a wreck site thought to be the resting place for the ships and has a firsthand view of artifacts on the ocean floor. She and fellow Explorer Alyea Pierce try to picture a female-led insurrection on one of the ships.

“We’ve seen maritime archaeology develop rapidly over the last 50 years. Really a lot of it has been a reduction in the cost of the technologies that we use and a reduction in the cost of doing the surveys. And so we have been able to use advanced technologies, like side-scan sonar, which gives us a reading of the bottom of the ocean floor, as well as a magnetometer — which is essentially a giant metal detector that we can attach onto the back of our boats to pick up metals, similar to the way that you would on a beach or in a field with a handheld metal detector.” Justin Dunnavant

Justin Dunnavant was selected as one of The Explorers Club’s “Fifty People Changing the World that You Need Know About.” The EC50 was established to not only reflect the great diversity of exploration, but to give a voice to trailblazing explorers, scientists, and activists doing incredible work, with over 46 countries of work represented from 17 countries of residence.

Our research at the Estate Little Princess in St. Croix and forthcoming work in Africatown, Alabama was featured in the cover story of the latest issue of American Archaeology Magazine.

Great news! In honor of Black History Month and Season 2 of #YourAttentionPlease, the Society of Black Archaeologists is partnering with @Hulu to drive impactful change around the country. They’ll be donating $200k to nine nonprofits and we’ve been chosen as one of them!

Check out Season 2, Episode 3 of Hulu's #YourAttentionPlease !