Archaeology in your own backyard

A few weeks ago following Darcy Mathew's presentation on burial cairns and mounds, I was out for my usual Sunday run, on a route that I had taken many times before, and instead of just listening to my music and tuning out my surroundings, I began focusing on my surroundings.

I began to look around and think that unknown archaeological sites could potentially be anywhere. As I ran through Mount Douglas Park, I looked around for anything that appeared to be overgrown and as I continued on down Blenkinsop Road I looked for any unusual dips and mounds in the landscape. 

His PowerPoint presentation made me realize that archaeology is EVERYWHERE you just need to know how to look for it and be aware of your surroundings.

Maybe it was because I was looking for an archaeological site and daydreaming about being the first person to discover one, but I thought I saw (what looked like) different burial mounds on a piece of stagnant property on Blenkinsop Road. This piece of property used to be used as a horseback riding facility with several stables and riding arenas.I used to take horse back riding lessons there many years ago until the facility shut down.  

As I was running, I did not slow down or have a chance to take a closer look but the mounds were definitely man-made and stood out in the grassy fields. When I did ride at the old stable these mounds had cross country horse jumps built upon them. As Darcy Mathews mentioned in his presentation, burials mounds are not black and white and can vary greatly. For example, the Sutton Hoo burial mound (pictured below) is a very prominent feature in the landscape, whereas, some burial mounds are very hard to pick out amidst the landscape. During Darcy Mathews presentation, he said that after surveying an area several times he was able to pick out additional burial mounds and cairns that he did not see the first time around.

Burial Mound at Sutton Hoo, England
Available at:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Sutton_Hoo_Burial_Mound.jpg

I also noticed a few signs posted on the front grass just outside the front gates of the property which made me further believe (or hope) that this old riding stable property could in fact be an archaeological site. Unfortunately, since then I have run by a few more times and realized that these signs are actually advertising an environmental restoration project and not an upcoming archaeological project. But the question still echoes in the back of my mind, are these protrusions in the landscape unknown or forgotten about burial mounds? Or were they simply built for the cross country horse jumping course that I rode years ago?

Looking Back and Looking Forward: the Monument Analysis Follow-up

Although the group monument analysis project was due near the second week in February (which is nearly a month and a half ago), I wanted to take a moment to look back and reflect upon the exercise in a blog entry.

To be honest when we were first given the assignment I was quite worried about participating in it and not because it was a group exercise but because the assignment was looking at memorials and monuments found around Victoria and within cemeteries.

I lost both of my grandparents, from my dad's side, nearly ten years ago and up until now I have had trouble going to the cemetery to visit them and put flowers on their graves. I hate to say it but I think I could probably count, on one hand, the number times in which I have gone. I drive by the cemetery quite often and think about them regularly, but I actually haven't gone to visit in quite a while. And before completing the monument analysis I thought about them even more.

My group was very lucky on the day that we met to conduct the field work portion of the monument analysis because the days which preceded our group outing were rainy, windy and very miserable. However, when I picked everyone up at UVic there was no need to use the windshield wipers or defrost the windshield. The sky was slightly overcast but the clouds seemed to clear up as we got closer to the water and closer to the Ross Bay Cemetery. We chose to investigate a section of children's graves within Ross Bay Cemetery that Emily and I had learned about during a lecture in our Anthropology 312: Introduction to Medical Anthropology course.

Once we parked and wandered over to the cemetery, we really had no idea where to look so we split into groups and began searching for children's graves. All we had been told was that they were located in the southern corner of the cemetery.

I found myself having a constant internal battle with myself while I was working on the group project at the Ross Bay Cemetery. On the one hand, I was feeling very much like an archaeologist conducting field work. I was very objective, methodological and precise. I took notes, made a map and sketched all of the burials. As well, I found it fascinating how many different types of graves (single/multiple, size, shape etc.) and burial markers (type, size, engravings etc.) there were within our small sample.On the other hand, I was feeling quite emotional and upset. I found myself looking at the cemetery very subjectively. Because I've been privileged enough to grow up in the Western world, I was uncomfortable knowing that these children had to be buried by their parents. I don't think that parents should ever have to bury their children. 

Since completing the monument analysis, I have thought about and spoken about the exercise quite regularly - particularly with my group. Although we have not yet, we plan on getting together (hopefully next week) to go back to the cemetery and put flowers on all the graves that we surveyed. We want to acknowledge their presence and thank them for being a part of our study. I think that in doing so, our group will be contributing to and providing good ethics within the archaeological discipline.
IMGP0095, a photo by naked&beheaded on Flickr.

("Naked and Beheaded" group picture after completing the preliminary work for our monument analysis.)

I feel that as a result of taking this class and completing the readings and assignments (particularly the monument analysis) I now have a better understanding of death and mortuary practices. And maybe, just maybe, I will feel more comfortable talking about the subject and will be able to go to the cemetery to visit my grandparents without feeling quite as sad.

Despite the fact that this class does not have a final, I think I will give myself one final assignment to complete, a take home assignment. I am going to try to go and visit my grandparents in the cemetery within which they are buried by next Friday April 8, 2011. I also hope that I will find the strength to continue visiting them more frequently in the future.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead...

Okay so I know it’s been a while… no that’s an understatement it was has FOREVER since my last blog. It’s not that I haven’t thought about it or made notes ALL around the house, on sticky notes to scrap pieces of paper. Jottings, scribbles… I think there may even been a few ‘catchy’ titles or pictures drawn but nothing in (gasp) over a month and now here I am sitting awake in bed at 2:30AM blogging, when I would much rather be sleeping.

This post has possibly or rather probably nothing to do with archaeology but more about death (but on the lighter side of it).

Do you ever wonder how people came up with the sayings such as “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”? Right now, I do...

I have used it numerous times before when my schedule has gotten really hectic… but to be honest when is it not hectic. Family, school, work, exercise, friends… and down time if there is such a thing, and then when I finally get a chance to drift off to sleep, my mind is still going and causing me to be awake at (NOW) 2:36AM.

I don’t want to offend anyone or make this into a debate surrounding particular beliefs, and I’m going to keep this very brief because it is (NOW) 2:38AM and my mind is clearly not all with me…. but, assuming once I’m dead that there is some sort of an afterlife -- will I get to sleep then?
Today in class we briefly talked about the Viking belief in Valhalla and (correct me if I’m wrong) how some say that the Vikings in Valhalla get to fight all day and drink/sleep all night, do you think they would be able to get to sleep after tuckering themselves out all day fighting?

Or will they, as well I currently am now, still toss and turn waiting for sleep to finally sink in… right now, I hope that the saying is true and that I WILL SLEEP WHEN I’M DEAD because right now it sure isn’t happening.

It is (NOW) 2:47AM.

I'm going to try this again... Goodnight!

Naked and Beheaded: Memorial Monument Analysis

Children's graves in the South Eastern corner of Ross Bay Cemetery

View Naked and Beheaded: A Survey of Children's Graves at Ross Bay Cemetery in a larger map


1)   Eleven children’s graves in the Roman Catholic, Anglican and general use sections of the South Eastern corner of the Ross Bay Cemetery comprised the data set for my “Memorial Monument Analysis” group; however we did record a twelfth grave which was the deceased adult twin brother of one of the children. For our analysis, we chose to try and include a children’s grave only if the child was under ten years of age when they died. However there were a few exceptions, two of the graves did not include the age or date the child died but did address them as “baby”, as well we recorded the adult twin brother (as mentioned above) of one of the children.
   Throughout the field research we identified a few different limitations to our study that are important to consider when analyzing the data. These limitations include: the scope of our study (e.g. small sample size and small area surveyed), missing information on graves (e.g. cause of death, year of death, age), our limited historical background and limited knowledge on different religious burial practices.


2) Possible Research Questions:
- What is the distribution of children’s graves in the South Eastern section of the Ross Bay Cemetery?
- How do the children’s graves sites and markers vary from one another (size, shape etc.)?
- How are the children’s graves aligned? Is the alignment consistent or how does it vary?
- When did the children die? Is there a particular year that repeatedly comes up, perhaps because of disease or certain historical event?
- Is there a consistent timeline of children’s graves or are there gaps in time? If there are gaps, why weren’t they buried at Ross Bay Cemetery?
- Are there other clusters of children’s graves found within Ross Bay Cemetery?

3)   When thinking about cemeteries and burials, most people may think about an older generation passing on after having a long life. But in fact, there is a great deal of age variation within cemeteries ranging from young infants to the elderly. Although North American society has, for the most part, come a long ways in health advancements and longevity, there is no way to know how long each individual will live.
      Graves sites and grave markers come in all different shapes and sizes, ranging from large to very small ones depending on the cultural burial practice or religious view of the people at the time. In the Ross Bay Cemetery, small graves were sought out in hopes that they were children’s graves; not all of the children’s graves were small but this method helped to find many of the sites. In the St. Thomas Anglican Churchyard in Ontario, Canada, excavators found that the size of a coffin usually corresponded with the age of the individual inside, however the shape of the coffin did not (McKillop 1995: 82). The “Monument Analysis” group did not know at the time what to look for, but McKillop’s idea (though much more extensive) loosely supports the simple way the Ross Bay Cemetery analysis began.
      When examining the Ross Bay Cemetery, the main research question posed was: what is the distribution of children’s graves in the South Eastern corner of this cemetery. This section of the cemetery was mentioned in one of the group members Medical Anthropology classes as having a large amount of children’s graves and was the driving factor for selecting this area for survey and analysis. Although the group was able to find numerous children’s graves, there did not appear to be any particular spacing, patterning or distribution to them, although they all were lined up East to West (with the grave marker on either end). After conducting some additional research, the group realized that overtime the cemetery had changed it’s segregation of religious backgrounds and beliefs. Originally the group had found an older map and thought that the area surveyed was strictly Roman Catholic, which did not seem to fit the graves sites and markers that were found. But, a more recent map was later found which revealed the survey area to contain Roman Catholic, Anglican and a general use section. The group then postulated that perhaps there was no noticeable distribution pattern because of the change in different religious practices within the survey area. However, just as there was no particular distribution at the Ross Bay Cemetery, this observation was similarly recorded in St. Thomas Anglican Churchyard, where the children’s graves were found in a variety of different locations within the cemetery (McKillop 1995: 88), as well as Indian Knoll in Kentucky and Dickson Mounds in Illinois where both children and adults were mixed in the different grave clusters (Rothschild 1979: 671). Therefore, children may not have been segregated within the cemetery on purpose.
      One very interesting observation that was made in the Ontario churchyard excavations was that children were not always buried in association with their mothers but they were in family plots near other relatives (McKillop 1995: 88). Similarly, during the Ross Bay Cemetery survey, the group found one child, Mary Elizabeth Rickard, who was buried in a family plot but were unable to tell who her mother was. After reading McKillop’s article, the group survey observations seemed much more logical.
      When comparing the group’s data from the “Monument Analysis” in Ross Bay Cemetery to other field work in different parts of North America, across different cultural groups and across time, it was very interesting to note the similarities between them. With this in mind, cross cultural comparisons can be considered very useful when trying to interpret data. Children were not found to be segregated from the rest of the population in any of these surveys and therefore the question could arise as to why this may have been. Perhaps keeping the children with the rest of the population was a way in which the living sought to protect their children and a way to make the deceased children feel safe.


Works Cited

McKillop, H. 1995, "Recognizing Children's Graves in Nineteenth-Century Cemeteries: Excavations in St. Thomas Anglican Churchyard, Belleville, Ontario, Canada", Historical Archaeology, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. pp. 77-99.

Rothschild, N.A. 1979, "Mortuary Behaviour and Social Organization at Indian Knoll and Dickson Mounds", American Antiquity, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. pp. 658-675. 

"If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can't buy” (proverb)

Status.... One word, yet it can mean a multitude of different things depending on the context, who is being asked and depending on the culture you are referring it to.

I think that archaeologists look at status as a way to separate the people, the land and the world. Status can be a way to categorize and describe what we see each and everyday. Depending on where an archaeologist is working, status could refer to a simple or complex hierarchy of social organization within a society, which could be determined by birth, family, marriage, occupation, death, or perhaps religion. These are just a few ideas I thought of off the top of my head but once again depending on the person, each and every one of us could have a different idea about status and investigate this abstract concept in a different way. Status is perceptual and is a cultural construct.

Depending on whether we are studying a deceased past population, whose remains are excavated and studied, or a living population, that we can study through ethnographic field work, the techniques and strategies of measuring status could be completely different. The advantage of investigating a living population is that an anthropologist can go into the field and observe behaviour as it is occurring in real-time; whereas when studying a deceased population we have to interpret, from the remains, how these people may have interacted. I believe these two different types of studies have one overarching factor in common and that is the fact that in both cases the anthropologist may not be able to fully understand the society, but needs to make inferences based on patterns and relationships that they see.

Often times when looking at burials, anthropologists are quick to assume that a person buried with or without particular grave goods would have had a high or low status, but these assumptions are based on what we believe to have value today. Below is a picture of burial goods from a Late Roman burial, these grave goods which are thought to have been valuable to this culture may carry little value in another society so it is important to remember that value is perceptual.

(Example of grave goods from a Late Roman burial)
Available at:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/36/82535535_32bee80cd3.jpg

The archaeology of death, or the study of mortuary analysis, can be thought of as both the study of the dead, as well as the study of the living (Parker Pearson 1999:3). As such, burials found within the archaeological record can be looked at as representations of both the deceased individual and the past society who put the time and effort into burying the individual (Parker Pearson 1999:3).

I believe that, often times, archaeologists will interpret grave goods as representations of the person buried and not always take into consideration the family and society that contributed to this process.
In fact, graves can often tell archaeologists more about a living society from the past than it can about the particular deceased individual being studied because, “the wishes of the deceased are not always followed” by the living (Parker Pearson 1993:203).

As much as I would like to believe that my family knows me well enough to bury me with items that I associated with and had a fondness for in life, if I were to die tomorrow I don't think that my grave would be an exact representation of the real me. I think that they might put items in that reminded them of me and perhaps not what I would put it.

As well, I think that if someone were to undercover me years from now they may be misled as to my social status within the society. As I am a student, and we all know how tough that can be on the wallet, I would not be able to afford the burial that my parents would most likely provide for me.

In the end it is not important to me how or where I am buried, it is how I will be remembered that will count.

Resources Consulted:
- Parker Pearson, M. 1993. The Powerful Dead: Archaeological Relationships between the
Living and the Dead. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3(2):203-229.
- Parker Pearson, M. 1999. The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Texas: Texas A&M
University Press.  

Hanging on....

This afternoon when I was looking for 'alternative' funerary practices online, I began thinking to myself how strange and foreign many of these ideas seemed to me. And then I realized that to those who engage in these practices, it is just considered a part of life. Perhaps the common Western traditions and burial practices that I have become accustomed to would seem unusual to others around the world.

I have never researched burial practices and customs before and I was awestruck at the different variations that can be found around the world, both in the past and present. Just as every culture has a different way of grieving for a lost loved one, every culture has a different belief on how the body of the deceased should be cared for and what happens to that persons spirit after their time has ended on the earth.

(Example of a cremation urn)                                                                                            Available at:                   http://www.evergreenmemorialchapel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/cremation-urns-for-sale.jpg

Before class last week, I had never really given much thought to different burial practices other than the typical cremation (which are sometimes placed in an urn as pictured above) or inhumation practices that are most commonly found in North America.

While browsing different internet sites, I found a practice which involves hanging coffins (with the deceased inside) over and on the sides of cliffs and inside of limestone caves (Jinhui 2003; Travel and Leisure 2011). Two places that were most commonly sited for using or having used this type of burial practice were the Bo people of South West China (who are no longer in existence) and a small group of people in the Sagada Province of the Philippines (that are thought to still persist).

Many have hypothesized how the hanging coffins came to be placed on the sides of cliffs but one common idea is that they are thought to have been placed there by lowering the coffins down with ropes and then fixed in place by wodden stakes (Jinhui 2003). The coffins vary greatly in their distances above ground with some being as close to the ground as ten meters while others almost seem to reach the sky over one hundred meters above the ground. Once again, it can only be hypthesized why certain coffins were placed higher or lower but as with other burial traditions perhaps it has to do with being closer to freedom or closer to some higher spiritual power (Jinhui 2003).

One observation that I made about this type of burial practice which should be quite obvious is that these people must have believed in some type of life after death as they made such efforts to place these coffins on cliffs instead of just quickly disposing of the remains; they took time to place the bodies in coffins and carefully place them coffins on the sides of cliffs which served to protect the bodies.

(Example of hanging coffins found in China and the Phillipines)

Available at:

http://www.blurtit.com/q5523196.html

 As this practice is not a new innovation and has been around for hundreds of years, when looking at these hanging coffins we are looking at archaeological remains. We are looking at the remnants of these different societies traditions. However, with that being said there is no guarantee that a coffin will remain on the cliff side forever and due to climate and the other persistent elements of mother nature they could fall as well. Depending on what is beneath the cliffs (water, land, etc.) preservation could vary quite significantly, from pieces of wood, human bone to nothing at all.

Personally, I know that I would not be able to rest in peace after dying if I knew that my body was going to be placed in a coffin hanging over the edge of a cliff. Along with spiders, I am petrified of heights and the thought of falling. How on earth would my spirit ever be able to remain calm while worrying about my body plummeting off the edge of a cliff. It would be just like having one of those falling dreams (or nightmares) but instead I would not be able to wake up at the last second to catch myself.

Resources Consulted:
Travel and Leisure 2011 http://travelandleisure.cz.cc/hanging-coffins-and-burial-caves 

Jinhui 2003 http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/55407.htm

When daffodils are in bloom, think of me...

Last night, before I climbed into bed, I finally took a moment and carefully read over the questions for the blog prompt. I decided that I would give myself the night to think and dream about what items I might place in my grave before beginning to write all my thoughts down, little did I know the emotional responses that would follow.

Before I tell you what you would find in my grave, I should explain that I have had the fortune or misfortune (depending on how you look at it) of having a few very personal close calls with death, both in 2007 and again in 2009. My mom and I often laugh (maybe more out of discomfort than anything) and say that I must have nine lives just like a cat.

In the fall of 2007, I went in for a routine procedure of having my wisdom teeth removed. My teeth had been giving me some pain for quite sometime and as I was going to be leaving for the South Pacific early in 2008, I did not want to have to put up with the soreness while I was away. I was very insistent that I should have my wisdom teeth removed (all four) in time to heal before getting on the airplane. Over reading break, I went in to the dental office for the procedure and everything appeared to have went well until I came home and had a seizure before going unconscious and stopping breathing. By the time the ambulance arrived, I had started breathing and woken up but my mom and dad both say that those thirty to forty-five seconds (that I was gone) were the longest in their lives. The doctors now believe that I had a delayed reaction to the anaesthetic that was used to put me under during the procedure.

If that close call was not close enough you probably will not believe what happened in 2009. My best friend and I decided to get away for a while and go for a girls getaway camping trip to Savary island (off the coast of Powell River) at the end of May 2009. We booked time off work, made a list of all the things that we would need and triple checked every list. Before leaving my coworkers teased me and said that the girls getaway weekend was going to be like survival of the fittest and only one of us was going to come home alive (talk about foreshadowing). The five days we spent on Savary Island went from bad to worse, everything that could go wrong did. In the morning when we were going to leave, I woke up with the worst pains in my abdomen. I took Advil to try and relieve the pain but it did not work. I was not even able to eat breakfast, which is very unlike me! We packed up camp and started the long trip back the Victoria. Steph offered to drive but I thought that driving would keep my mind off the pain in my side that was becoming almost unbearable. As I was driving down the highway, going over 120 km/hr, just outside of Ladysmith, I turned to Steph and told her that I was either going to pass out or throw up. She frantically looked ahead and found a place to pull over where we could switch seats. I did not know what was wrong with me, but I knew that something was not right. As the pain continued, I looked at Steph and joked that I was going to die. I started listing off where things were in my room, passwords on my computer, pin codes to my bank accounts and I told her the different people I wanted at my funeral. All of the things that I said were the truth despite the fact that we were trying to laugh and get home as soon as we could. The one thing that I was most certain about was that my funeral would not be a place to cry and mourn but instead a place to celebrate and laugh because that was the way I wanted to be remembered.

I will stop my story here to list a couple of the things that I told Steph (at that moment in the car) that I wanted in my burial, and as well I will add a few items that I have since decided should be included:
1) daffodils - They have always been my favourite flower since I was a little girl. My grandma (who is still alive today) and I used to walk down from her house to this big open field and spend the morning picking daffodils. Sometimes we would pick enough for me to sell at a stand on the edge of my driveway and other times we would just pick a few for her house and mine. I realize that they will not for keep for very long, as they are organic, but I would still love to have some with me.
2) a book called “The Five People you Meet in Heaven” but Mitch Albom - This book was given to me for my birthday in 2006. I have read this book over a half dozen times and is packed in my bag whenever I go travelling. The book teaches about the people who affect our lives each and everyday and whose lives we impact, though we may not realize it at the time. I would hope that after attending my funeral and learning about this burial item, more people would pick up the book and take situations and chance encounters for granted less often.
3) my leopard print blanket - I am the type of person who wants to be comfortable both in life and in death. Normally when I come home for the day and am lounging around the house, I put on my pyjamas and spread this blanket on me to keep warm.
4) pictures of my family and friends - I have a number of different photo albums and pictures but perhaps someone will put together a photo album or scrap book for me and place it in my burial. I have always loved looking at pictures because they can be interpreted so many different ways and tell so many different stories. Pictures help remind us of things that we often forget.
5) a cowboy hat - Although I was born and raised in Victoria, people always think that I must have come from Calgary or Texas because I am a country girl to the core. I love country music, I used to own a pony on my uncles farm, I travel to see rodeos and I even wore white cowboy boots underneath my fancy princess dress at graduation.

Back to my story…
Once Steph and I made it back into town, we first went to the clinic and was then quickly rushed off to the hospital for emergency surgery on my appendix on June 1, 2009. My appendix was very close to rupturing but they were able to take it out before that happened, unfortunately I had a very severe infection in my abdomen surrounding the area of my appendix. Instead of leaving the hospital after one night, I was there for four nights; and instead of being off my feet for two weeks, I was on bed rest for almost eight weeks. The recovery was very slow, and once again my mom and I had to laugh and joke. She took more than a full week off work to look after me, her giant twenty-one year old infant, as I could not do anything on my own (including walk the short distance up the hallway to the bathroom).

These two experiences (from 2007 and 2009) absolutely changed my life. Following my surgery in 2009, I wrote a “bucket list” of one hundred and one things that I want to do before I die and since then I have completed almost twenty of them. I no longer take the little moments in life and hiccups along the way for granted, I have learned to appreciate and take in each moment as it comes.