Unknown gold miner, and his boots, finally laid to rest after 140 years & More Trending News

More than 140 years after he died, an unknown gold miner initially buried in his boots has been laid to rest for the ultimate time.

On Saturday morning a horse-drawn hearse carried the person to Cromwell cemetery the place the consultants who’ve spent a long time learning his stays lowered his coffin into the bottom.

Dr Neville Ritchie​ found the person’s physique in a shallow grave practically 40 years in the past and says whereas there’s now a clearer image of who the person was, he at all times hoped that somebody would ultimately have the option to reveal his identify.

”We simply referred to him as our good friend.”

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Believed to be one of many 1000’s of males who got here to the Central Otago area throughout the late 1800s gold rush, the person’s physique was present in 1983 by Ritchie throughout archaeological work forward of building of the Clyde Dam and freeway.

An orchardist had been advised by his father {that a} man who drowned within the river was buried on his land in a grave that lay within the path of the yet-to-be-constructed (*140*) Highway 8.

Upon discovering and excavating the schist-topped grave, Ritchie found it had been robbed, a apply that had by no means been recorded within the goldfields.

“You would expect human remains to be at the bottom of the grave but we were finding bits and pieces, particularly ribs, within about 20cms of the surface. It was obvious something untoward had happened.

“The pelvis had a cut mark on it that we believe was from a shovel. Presumably they were looking for something valuable like gold.”

Although the picket casket had rotted away, the brackets and handles have been lacking as have been the buttons from the person’s garments. But whereas the highest half of the person’s skeleton was in disarray, from the waist down he was intact and nonetheless sporting his boots.

“That was unusual and possibly more evidence it was a decomposing body found on the banks of the Cluth and the people who found him had enough concern to acquire a coffin and bury him with some slabs of stone on top.”

The man’s stays – often called “E224” – have been despatched to Otago University’s medical faculty the place consultants set about attempting to discover out extra about him.

Testing in the end revealed he was between 35 and 40 years previous when he died and at 1.88m was tall for his time.

“The DNA suggests he was of English extraction but with links to Denmark so he may have been of Viking blood way back.”

The boots put the person’s dying at anyplace between the peak of the gold rush via to the late nineteenth century and dietary data reveals he had a “pretty tough” and undernourished childhood.

“He came to New Zealand and he had better nutrition for a while, but by the time he died was suffering from scurvy like a lot of miners were.”

Ritchie says there was no apparent indication of how the miner died aside from the story of drowning that had been handed down via the landowner’s household.

Now, after languishing for 37 years within the University of Otago’s anatomy division it was time for the miner’s physique to be returned to the bottom.

“I’m not sure what send-off he had originally, but this probably exceeds it, and is really for other forgotten miners lost in the goldfields who didn’t end up in a cemetery or urupa in the end.”

Professor Hallie Buckley​ says the work has been a workforce effort from archaeologists each right here and within the UK. The undertaking has been vital in its findings, and it was down to advances in bioarchaeological and archaeological methodology that a lot about him was ready to be revealed.

“But we’re now at a place where we’ve told as much of his story as we can, and we’re very pleased to be able to have him safely reinterred.”

The funeral was organised by Alexandra-based funeral director Lynley Claridge​ and the workforce at Affinity Funerals who coated the prices.

Claridge says the person had develop into a logo for all of the gold miners misplaced throughout the gold rush, lots of whom by no means had the funerals they deserved.

Speaking on the service she stated the gold miner is now mendacity on a delicate calico mattress with his boots now not on his ft however positioned subsequent to him.

“His work is done now so, Mr Gold Miner, rest in peace.”

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