The Bethel Cemetery Relocation Project: Historical, Osteological, and Material Culture Analyses of a Nineteenth-Century Indiana Cemetery

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Bethel Cemetery Relocation Project: Historical, Osteological, and Material Culture Analyses of a Nineteenth-Century Indiana Cemetery" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Due to unavoidable redevelopment and facility expansion, the Indianapolis Airport Authority (IAA) contracted with the cultural resource management specialists of Cardno Inc. (now Stantec) to conduct public coordination, background research, field documentation, geophysical investigation, excavation, and relocation of individuals buried in the Bethel Cemetery (12MA1025), located in Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana. This once-rural cemetery, established in 1827, was utilized by early Indiana pioneers and their descendants until 1935. During the summer of 2018, 540 burial features, only 135 of which were unequivocally associated with headstones, were removed by Cardno in collaboration with faculty and students from Indiana University-Purdue University (IUPUI), University of Indianapolis (UIndy), and Indiana State University (ISU). Subsequent osteological and artifact analyses were conducted prior to reburial at a new cemetery in August 2019; this new location was rededicated in September 2019. This symposium presents ongoing research related to this excavation and associated analyses. Poster topics include photogrammetric imaging of the cemetery landscape and individual burials, bioarchaeological investigations of the human remains including demography and paleopathology, above- and belowground material culture analyses, and a discussion of the collaboration between the archaeological team, the living descendant community, the client, and additional stakeholders.