Mourning and Remembering: Memorials at a Pet Cemetery in Oulu, Finland

Summary

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.

Contrary to socially and legislatively controlled human burial grounds with organized maintenance, pet cemeteries with their inherent do-it-yourself character are often stages for more spontaneous expressions of grief and longing. The evidence of remembering varies from nearly unmarked graves to elaborate memorials with headstones, epitaphs, flowers, and personal objects. The many-faceted pet-memorials and the material culture associated with them makes it possible to study issues like human-animal relations, acts of mourning and remembering, and ritual creativity. These aspects will be discussed here in relation to the Mikonkangas Pet Cemetery, in Oulu, Finland with 170 horse burials and ca. 4,500 smaller companion animal burials, of which the authors have already documented and studied the former as a pilot project. The applied methods have included archaeological documentation, interviews with the horse caretakers, and cyclic visits to the site.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Mortuary Monuments and Archaeology: Current Research

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 375