"Spirits of the Dead": The Historical Archaeology of Cemeteries and Commemoration

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ywone Edwards-Ingram.

This paper discusses archaeological findings within Colonial Williamsburg and explores factors that have influenced ways of knowing about eighteenth-century burial sites of African-descendant individuals and groups in Williamsburg, Virginia.  While the emphasis is on the colonial era, some attention is given to the nineteenth century and the more visible commemorations of the dead relating to this period.   The aim is to discuss burials and commemorative practices of enslaved and free blacks and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin A Gidusko. Patrisha L. Meyers.

Historic cemeteries are some of the most threatened cultural resources in the state of Florida; of these, historic African-American cemeteries are most at risk. Subject to neglect, rapid urbanization, and the loss of community remembrance, these sites are in need of immediate preservation efforts. This paper discusses investigations into these sites through the work of the Florida Historic Cemeteries Recording Project (FLHCRP), a volunteer-driven effort overseen by the Florida Public Archaeology...

DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Homer Thiel. Jeremy Pye.

The Improved Order of Red Men opened a lodge in Tucson, Arizona Territory in 1898. Here, members of the fraternal group held meetings featuring songs and speeches, and marched in parades dressed in Native American attire. The lodge purchased a cemetery plot and, from 1898 to 1908, 20 graves were dug. Archaeological excavation of the eastern cluster of graves yielded nine burials, two complete and seven exhumed in 1915. Each grave contained human remains, clothing, coffins, and outer boxes....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua J Butchko.

Unique circumstances have provided the opportunity to carefully investigate two historic New Jersey cemeteries as archaeological sites: the  First Presbyterian Church of Elizabeth (founded in 1668) and the  First Dutch Reformed Church of New Brunswick (founded in 1765).  In Elizabeth, a grave marker conservation effort involved excavations that yielded insights into the evolving cultural landscape of the property.    In New Brunswick, a monitoring program employed during new construction at the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Madeline Bourque Kearin.

The St. George’s/St. Mark's Cemetery in Mount Kisco, NY, offers an ideal site in which to investigate the construction of 19th-century middle-class personhood. Previous studies have generally conceptualized the gravestone either as a passive reflection of social realities or as a site of the momentary suspension of social difference. The proposed study will marshal historical and archaeological evidence in demonstrating how gravestones functioned as active participants in the articulation of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Simon H. Goldstone.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a shift from marble headstones to granite has been observed across the United States and in parts of Canada, as well.  The goal of this study is to determine when this shift in headstone material occurred in North Carolina, and what factors contributed to this transition.  Another objective is to determine how this shift impacted the expression of cultural meaning in North Carolina cemeteries.   By examining how the shift from marble to granite caused...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Harold Mytum.

Mariners could have their graves marked by inscribed memorials in the Irish Sea region from the late 18thcentury onwards, acting as both grave markers and foci for memory and commemorative practices. Some died on land, and so are interred in the grave, or at sea and their bodies have been lost, creating different issues regarding grieving and commemoration. Archaeology can examine how far this is materially represented in their memorials. Recent research in North America and England by David...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sanna Lipkin. Erika Ruhl. Saara Tuovinen.

This paper examines commemorating children in premodern northern Finland. The hypothesis is that high child mortality (forty percent died before the age of four) affected the ways in which children were commemorated and how childhood was perceived. The primary question is, how mourning is visible in the coffin textiles and accessories? These materials have been unearthed both in town and rural cemeteries, while some of the clothes are dressed on mummified deceased below church floors. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Nonestied.

A community mausoleum is an above ground communal burial structure. The modern community mausoleum can trace its roots back to 1906, when William Hood patented and built his "new and useful burial crypt" in a Ganges, Ohio cemetery. Hood formed the National Mausoleum Company to build additional structures, but also faced competition from competing firms trying to capitalize on the new community mausoleum craze. In a little over five years, more than 100 community mausoleums were built -- by 1915,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph A. Downer.

This paper discusses the ongoing archaeological survey of the African-American Cemetery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Ultimately, this project was designed to bring about a better understanding of this space on the plantation landscape and to honor those unknown who call this spot their final resting place. Through the use of this space, it is believed that a portion of Mount Vernon’s enslaved population was able to culturally resist their imposed social position through the reinforcement...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sherene Baugher.

Andersonville is a familiar name to Americans because of the effective way both the POW camp and the cemetery are memorialized as National Heritage Sites.  But what were the conditions in the Northern POW camps for Confederate prisoners?  The Elmira, New York Prisoner of War Camp was the Andersonville of the north.  This site, like other Northern POW camps, was dismantled after the war. What was the fate of the Northern POW camp cemeteries? Were there monuments to the Confederate dead? Did any...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Veit.

This paper examines the commemorative iconography of Kolkata India's South Park Street Cemetery.  Established in 1767, the South Park Street Cemetery is the resting place of the leadership of England's colonial efforts in Bengal.  It contains over 1600 monuments and likely many more burials.  These monuments range from enormous masonry pyramids to scaled down Greek and Roman temples, and Hindu and Mughal inspired tombs.  Drawing upon an international commemorative vocabulary combining classical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily A Williams.

Norfolk’s 1855, yellow fever epidemic offers a unique opportunity within which to consider the way a commmunity’s emotional response is manifested in the cemetery landscape.  Within a three month period, a third of the city’s population had died, martial law had been declared, and the city had been blockaded to prevent the fever’s spread.  The epidemic was well-documented in newspapers as well as in the accounts of diarists and epistolarians, which chronicle the overwhelming fear, disruption and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danny Younger.

The discovery of a hitherto undocumented massacre site has prompted a radical reinterpretation of the French & Indian War in northeastern Pennsylvania.  Following the extermination of the missionary populations at Gnadenhutten and Dansbury, this third massacre of Moravian women and children has established a pattern best explained in the context of a Delaware Indian/Moravian "religious war" whose proximate cause can be traced to the earthquake of 18 November 1755 – the single largest earthquake...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hugh B Matternes.

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...