The Cemetery as an Evolving Cultural Landscape

Abstract

Cemeteries are deliberately created and highly organized cultural landscapes. Investigation of five Oregon cemeteries, and casual observations in Utah, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New York, has led to the conclusion that cemeteries have undergone the same general spatial and architectural evolution as the American scene, and that they may in fact be miniaturizations and idealizations of larger American settlement patterns.

Mortality, Money, and Commemoration: Social and Economic Factors in Southern California Grave-Marker Change During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

“…Grave markers of the last few centuries tend to be fixed in the ground (space), etched with a date of interment (time), and made of relatively durable materials (form), making them taphonomically ideal for in-depth analyses in anthropological archaeology. The SDGP has attempted to build on insight from many previous cemetery studies that investigated how and why the physical form of grave markers and their decorations change across space and time (Cannon 1989;Deetz and Dethlefsen 1965;Dethlefsen 1992;Dethlefsen and Deetz 1966;Francaviglia 1971;Hijiya 1983;Mytum 1989Mytum , 1994Mytum , 2000Mytum , 2004Zucchi 1997;Veit 2009). San Diego's rapid political change during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries-the region's inhabitants experienced four successive cultural regimes in 79 years-has made the SDGP especially interested and influenced by studies examining the effects of historical governance, ethnicity, organized religion, and notions of community on material changes in mortuary attitudes and practices (Ambler 1998;Benes 1977;Brandes 1998;Cannon 1989;Cartier 1993;Clark 1987;Deetz 1996;Gladney 1987;Gorman and DiBlasi 1981;Gudeman 1976;Jordan 1982;Leader 1997;Little et al 1992;Mackie 1988;McGuire 1988;Meyer 1989Meyer , 1993Mytum 1989Mytum , 2004Rainville 1999;Stannard 1973;Whitley 1994).…”

When People Died: An Examination of Seasonality of Mortality Using an Historic African American Population

“…Cemeteries provide one view of the local society through demographic and epidemiological data including items such as sex, race, age at death, occupation, education, marital status of the deceased, and cause of death. These data can be used to provide a greater understanding of the demographic and social patterns of a population at a given time period, and to chart historical events in a community, including natural disasters, epidemics, and wars (Young 1960;Francaviglia 1971;Vidutis and Lowe 1980;Dethlefsen and Deetz 1969;Kephart 1950;Schlenker 1980=1981). For When People Died 151 sociologists, cemeteries represent ''open texts, there to be read'' (Foster et al 1998, p. 473).…”

The Cemetery and Cultural Memory: Montreal, 1860–1900

“…20 The lawn-type flush marker was used mainly for infant/child deaths. The tablet was the most common type of marker employed for centuries, until the use of granite and other hard materials.…”