Just asking for a friend

I helped reidentify a cemetery up in the Virginia Tidewater back a few decades ago. During the Civil War many
local records were sent to Richmond for safekeeping, which proved imprudent, as they were often destroyed. We had an unidentified cemetery in the woods, with no headstones, as wooden markers were common due to a lack of stone. We identified over thirty graveshafts, much like the one shown in the photo. They included round pit burials, presumed to be Native American, octagonal shafts, presumed to be African, and rectangular, for the Europeans. It was common to reuse or expand known burial grounds in early settlements.