Uncovering Identity in Mortuary Analysis: Community-Sensitive Methods for Identifying Group Affiliation in Historical Cemeteries

“An outstanding example of a cultural resource management project that has used all the best available methods of excavation and analysis. The authors offer data and interpretation of inestimable value on the treatment of the dead and on the bioarchaeology and the grave goods of those included in the cemetery. ”

—Nan Rothschild, Professor of Anthropology, Barnard College

This volume presents a sophisticated set of archival, forensic, and excavation methods to identify both individuals and group affiliations – cultural, religious, and organizational – in a multiethnic historical cemetery. Based on an extensive excavation project of more than 1,000 nineteenth-century burials in downtown Tucson, Arizona, the team of historians, archaeologists, biological anthropologists, and community researchers created an effective methodology for use at other historical-period sites. Comparisons made with other excavated cemeteries strengthens the power of this toolkit for historical archaeologists and others. The volume also sensitizes archaeologists to the concerns of community and cultural groups to mortuary excavation and outlines procedures for proper consultation with the descendants of the cemetery’s inhabitants.

“The Pima County Joint Courts Complex archaeological project is an exemplary case of cooperation between government and descendant groups who shared common concern for the respectful treatment and disposition of human remains found in unmarked graves within the historic Alameda-Stone cemetery in downtown Tucson, Arizona. This project will be remembered in history as an important human rights project, one in which a government’s action was based on firmness of purpose to ensure the cultural property rights of living descendant groups.”

—John Madsen, Associate Curator of Archaeology Emeritus, Arizona State Museum, and Arizona Repatriation Coordinator

Copublished and distributed by Left Coast Press.
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June 2012, 311 pages
Hardback: 978-1-61132-183-8
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