Cemetery (Other Keyword)
76-96 (96 Records)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Retrospective: 50 Years Of Research And Changing Narratives At Catoctin Furnace, Maryland", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. During the 1979/1980 Phase III excavation of the Catoctin Furnace African American cemetery, Sharon Ann Burnston served as field supervisor under the direction of the late Ron Thomas, Principal Investigator of Mid-Atlantic Archaeological Research, Inc. Her memories of the data recovery...
Research and Ethics in Cemetery Delineations (2013)
This paper will address historical research and the delineation of several 19th and 20th century historic cemeteries in the State of Georgia in the Southeastern United States. It will also address the ethical aspects of these kinds of projects, and suggest avenues for working together with clients, employers, government agencies, and concerned families in order to successfully complete potentially problematic cemetery and graveyard projects.
Righting Past Wrongs (2020)
This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Prior to the Civil War both whites and free African-Americans were interred at Cedar Grove cemetery in New Bern, North Carolina. In 1914, the Jim Crow Era city fathers decided to remove 14 African American burials to the black cemetery three blocks away. A century later, a local reporter and a community activist joined forces to right the past wrong and return the burials to their...
The Rural Cemetery Movement and Collective Memory (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Mortuary Monuments and Archaeology: Current Research" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Rural Cemetery Movement represented a radical departure in the ways people thought about and interacted with burial spaces, expanding beyond burial spaces only into places people visited on a regular basis. As such, they became not just burial grounds alone, but community assets. As a place where people visit for...
The Serenity Farm African American Burial Ground (2016)
The Maryland State Highway Administration had an opportunity to delineate and research an unmarked African American burial ground in southern Maryland. Prior to exploring the site, archaeologists reached out to a local descendent community in Charles County who agreed to speak for their ancestors. Throughout the project, archaeologists and the African American community shared in the discovery of the people buried in unmarked graves on the Smith Farm between ca. 1790 and ca. 1810. Forensic and...
Slave cemetery or not? An archeothanatological and anthropological approach from Guadaloupe (2013)
Most French Caribbean slave cemeteries associated with Atlantic trade have been recognized via archival research. For the others, the isolated location of burials usually indicate the presence of slaves; but in the absence of archives, what are the features which typically inform about the status of the cemetery ? Over the past few years, we have excavated several cemeteries of the colonial period were in Guadeloupe in the French West Indies. We shall focus on the slave cemetery of Anse...
Slavery and memory in French Guiana: designing the commemoration of memory at the Loyola cemetery while respecting sensibilities of history (2015)
Our paper reflects on the development of a commemoration concept which takes into account the sensibilities of descendants from the slave trade period in French Guiana. Memory of the trade period is indeed a very sensitive issue among residents of most Caribbean Islands and we use sixteen years of research at one site to present the various questions with which we are confronted in order for the local population to appropriate the spirit of place. The Loyola Habitation was located at 10 km from...
"A small secluded plot of ground": Preservation of the West Campus Cemetery at St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, DC (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC admitted its first patients in 1855. After a patient with no relatives died the following year, a cemetery was established on a hillside overlooking the Anacostia River. During its short two decades of use, civilian and Civil War veteran patients were buried there. However, few...
Social Bioarchaeology of Childhood Applied to the Analysis of an Excavated 19th Century Mennonite Cemetery (2013)
In 1852, a congregation of Anabaptist Mennonites from the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, immigrated to the United States to escape religious persecution, and settled in what is now Berne, Indiana. They established a new community, while retaining their religion, traditions, and heritage. The need for a cemetery was recognized, and the Old Berne Mennonite Cemetery served the community until 1896. The cemetery was recently excavated and relocated. This provided a unique opportunity to conduct an...
Standing for Sacred Spaces: NC Division of Cultural Resources and the African American Burial Ground Network Act (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Monuments, Memory, and Commemoration" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The NC Division of Cultural Resources has enacted a division-wide plan to recognize and embrace the state’s African American heritage resources and communities in a dynamic way. In particular, the Division is taking an active role to support the stewardship of NC’s African American burial grounds. This paper will detail how the North...
The sum of their parts: reconstituting individuality from atypical mixed burials at the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery (2015)
Excavations in 2013 at the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds cemetery recovered 650 burials from one of four locations used by Milwaukee County officials for burial of more than 7000 individuals from the mid-1800s through 1925. Of those recovered during the 2013 excavations, at least 25% have been identified as multiple interments. The diverse depositional contexts of several of these burials are indicative of a variety of mortuary behaviors atypical for a historic cemetery during this...
There is Nothing Like Looking if You Want to Find Something: The Emerging Accessibility of Historic Documents and the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (2017)
Since the foundation of the Society for Historic Archaeology 50 years ago changing technology has dramatically transformed historic document research. Historical data that would’ve taken countless hours of research to uncover is now available through a few clicks of a mouse. Modern technology cannot be relied upon for all historic research; it can, however, lead the researcher down previously undiscovered paths. Document research initiated in 2013 has aided in the reinterpretation of the...
Treating Material Culture Data and Biological Data Equally: An Example from the Alameda Stone Cemetery in Tucson, AZ (2018)
In the analysis of historic cemeteries, there are many instances, especially in recent years, of biological data taking precedence over data derived from material culture. In part, this is because analysts can often assign a probability to a biological decision, and material culture decisions do not come with specific probabilities. However, regardless of the nature of the data, all lines of evidence should be considered valid and significant. In the excavation and analysis of the Alameda Stone...
Twice Buried at Stenton: GPR in an Urban Family Cemetery (2020)
This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The nineteenth-century Logan family cemetery is today marked by a large cement pad that was poured at some point during the 1950s across the cemetery in order to prevent vandalism. An inset marker listing some of the names of those interred and a fragmentary stone wall are the only indications of the former mortuary landscape. Even though it is now part of a public city park, this...
TxDOT: Revealing African American History in the State of Texas (2017)
Over the last twenty years, the Texas Department of Transportation has conducted extensive historical and archeological research uncovering forgotten aspects of the rich cultural heritage of African Americans in Texas. This discussion touches upon major transportation undertakings where African American history was discovered and documented. These include the Ruben Hancock Site, the Freedman’s Cemetery, and the Ransom and Sarah Williams Freedman’s Homestead.
Upland Box Tombs: Southern Variants on a Popular Nineteenth Century Grave Cover (2016)
Box tombs (aka False Crypts) are a common grave cover in late eighteenth and nineteenth century cemeteries. In areas above the fall line in Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama, local granites and similar igneo-metamorphic stone were used to form rectangular surface chambers approximating the shape and dimensions of their more formally milled counterparts. While frequently observed, very little is known about the form. Variants include the slot-and-tab and tombs made from milled stone panels...
Using Digital Mapping Techniques to Rapidly Document Vulnerable Historical Landscapes in New Orleans, Louisiana (2018)
With the oncoming threat that climate change poses upon New Orleans, the documentation of historic spaces becomes critically important. This project aims to promote new methods of cataloging and visualizing the historic character, unique landscapes, and research potential of culturally significant sites so that they may be accessible to future generations, using Holt Cemetery as a case study. Our process combines GIS, Unmanned Aerial Systems, GPS, and traditional cemetery survey techniques to...
Using PXRF technology to aid in the recovery and analysis of human remains (2015)
Excavation and analysis of human remains from the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery (MCIG) provided an opportunity to test the effectiveness of portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) as both a field and laboratory tool. During the fieldwork portion of the project, excavations exposed soils that visual inspection suggested might harbor a concentration of toxic materials. PXRF was used on site to determine the nature of the potential toxins and determine the risk factor...
Virtually together?: The Digitization of the Community-Driven NC African American Cemetery Project (2021)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Remote Archaeology: Taking Archaeology Online in the Wake of COVID-19" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The North Carolina Office of State Archaeology and the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission have partnered to develop the NC African American Cemeteries Project. Over the last two years, the work has been primarily focused on offering community-driven, in-person workshops. This paper will...
What can we infer about family plots scatterings in a 19th Century Southern Georgia church grave site. (2015)
Through human history, the deceased have been buried, their bodies or representations placed in a space, most near their familial ties. Graves are not only places of rest but places to revisit the past and sanctuaries of still powerful affections. Why, in a 19th century Northern Georgia church gravesite do family plots of the same name scatter throughout different locations on the site, even within the same time periods? Why were the boundaries of the family plots physically set yet the...
When Modern Aviation Progress Meets the Tenacious Echoes of a Jim Crow Past: Archaeological and Historical Cemetery Investigations at Stinson Municipal Airport, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "From the Famed to the Forgotten: Exploring San Antonio’s Storied History Through Urban Archeology" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper details the development history of Stinson Municipal Airport in southern San Antonio, Texas. Founded by barnstormers in 1915 on an experimental sewer farm tract, Stinson would soon expand into what was originally part of the City’s adjacent San Jose Burial Park -...