Ebook: Mortuary Monuments and Burial Grounds of the Historic Period

Burial grounds strike an immediate chord with all who visit them. They are land­ scapes full of pathos and cultural associations which many find attractive, though a minority feel are too morbid to deserve detailed attention. This book is designed to offer a framework for studying historic burial ground monuments, and contains a certain amount of information regarding below-ground archaeology, as some projects will involve the study of both. Moreover, from a research perspective above and below ground archaeology together can throw considerable light on the process of dying, body disposal and commemoration that formed a continuum for those involved. However, the more easily accessible graveyard memorials can be used to study many aspects of past culture beyond that directly associated with death, and they are the focus of the book. Most people who become interested in historic graveyard memorials come to the subject via the material itself. Only rarely does a research question get posed, and graveyard data seem like an appropriate arena for investigation. This has the advantage that many researchers have some ideas about the data available, but the disadvantage that they may not have clear questions to ask of it, nor how to set their discoveries in a wider intellectual context.

This practical volume focuses on the study of historic burial ground monuments but also covers some below ground archaeology, as some projects will involve the study of both. The linking between above and below ground data has rarely been achieved, and the integration of graveyard data within settlement and landscape archaeology has also been likewise rarely attempted. Some areas covered are:
-A brief history and theoretical approached to historic mortuary archaeology;
-Attitudes to death, the body and remembrance;
-How to carry out a study;
-Conservation, education, and display.

Mortuary Monuments and Burial Grounds of the Historic Period will be an incomparable source for academic archaeologists, cultural resource and heritage management archaeologists, government heritage agencies, and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students of archaeology focused on the historic or post-medieval period, as well as forensic researchers and anthropologists.