I am looking for examples of the role of archaeology in the prop-active
management, conservation and interpretation of historic burial grounds.
The Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasmania, Australia, manages a 19th century
burial ground popularly known as the Isle of the Dead.  The Island was the
cemetery for the neighbouring Port Arthur Penal station, and contains the
remains of free officials, military, convicts and paupers who died there
between 1830-1877.  It is a closed burial ground, with no interments since
1877.

The Port Arthur Penal station is Australia's most intact convict site, and
Tasmania's largest tourist attraction.  The isle of the Dead is accessible
to tourists, with numerous guided tours of the burial ground daily.  The
majority of the burials, thought to number around 1000, are unmarked with
their condition/integrity unknown.  The Conservation Plan for the PAHS
assessed the IOD in 2000 as having exceptional archaeological forensic
potential, owing ostensibly to the closed (institutional) character of its
population and its potential to shed light on colonisation processes -
which in Tasmania involved the mass enforced migration of convicts from
Great Britain and her colonies.

The Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority is proposing to
undertake preliminary archaeological tests within unmarked portions of the
IOD burial ground to determine gross forensic research potential (i.e. is
there actually anything left in the ground? Is the condition of the remains
sufficient to assess the usual things, such as age, gender, diet,
pathology? Can isotopes, DNA etc be extracted? The aim isn't to actually do
the reserach or exhumations, but rather to document remains in-situ and
take small samples for laboratory testing in order to determine the
overall 'health' of the burial ground as a potential archaeological
research resource.

The site in question is managed as a reserve, but is susceptible to a
number of pressures, including tourism impacts, bio-mechanical impacts
through tree-planting designed to shelter remaining headstones, and
particularly chemical impacts - both through natural processes (acid soils)
and exacerbated by present management (i.e pine-bark paths).  The ultimate
aim is to understand what is there, what is happening to it, and whether
there is anything we can/should be doing to change our current management
to protect the potential scientific values of the place.

We are having a hard time trying to convince the local heritage consent
authority of the merits, both of conserving human burials, and of doing
archaeological research for the purposes of in-situ conservation.  the
prevailing attitude appears to be to 'let it decay in peace - there is
nothing to see here - move along'.  As an archaeologist I have a problem
with this view.  Sadly, if this attitude persists it will affect the
development of state heritage policy on burials/human remains (being
formulated as I write this), potentially removing forever the possibility
of answerinmg many important questions about Tasmania's colonial past.

I would therefore be very grateful if anyone could give me feedback with
their views on the merits of archaeological investigation as a means of
conserving historic burials, and examples of the scientific/public benefits
of pro-active management and conservation of historic burial grounds.
There is a great deal of literature on the subject of archaeology as a
catastrphic impact mitigation tool, but what I am talking about is
archaeology as a means of retaining and optimising the information content
of an in-situ resource threatened by progressive attrition, as well as of
the general public benefits of conserving historic burials in the first
place.

Greg Jackman
Archaeology Manager PAHS