Nan,

For the past several years, I have been attempting to collect a bibliography and physical collection of historic cemetery/burial excavation reports from across the country. Currently, I have a bibliography about 50 pages long of articles and reports broken down by states. I have one even longer of reports and/or projects that I have seen referenced but have not been able to acquire, or have heard about by word of mouth. These bibliographies do not necessarily consist only of  excavation reports...there are also some documentary surveys and various other works that I pinned down to a specific state. One of the main deterrents to acquiring information and reports on cemetery excavations is the fact that they are almost solely excavated by CRM firms and often are excavated and reported one without any mention in the archaeological community at large. They become part of the massive grey literature that everyone always talks about. I have emailed and spoken
 with countless individuals in my searching, and have been met with some people who are very helpful, some that ignore me completely, some who are helpful at first and then lose interest 5 minutes later, and several who are more than willing to either let you visit their facilities to view reports (which is often not possible due to travel costs), or copy reports at outrageous amounts of money per page. 

This work began as research for my MA thesis which discussed a small 19th century cemetery in Kansas. In Appendix B of my thesis, there is a table listing all of the cemeteries that I used as comparisons to the material recovered from my cemetery. In that table it states whether the comparison cemeteries were Euro, Hispanic, African-American and so on and so forth. You can download my thesis at <htpp://www.projectpast.org/jpye/publications.html>. The reference section of my thesis was 50 pages long, so there might be some other things of interest in there for you. You will also want to acquire the 2006 Arkansas Archeological Survey publication by Bob Mainfort and James Davidson, entitled "Two Historic Cemeteries in Crawford County, Arkansas." You can find ordering info for this monograph at the Arkansas Survey's website- <http://www.uark.edu/campus-resources/archinfo/newpubs.html>. 

The other responses and leads that you have gotten on the list thus far are promising. Some of them I have heard about, and some I will have to pursue myself. I am curious why you have posted this query. Do you have a cemetery that you are currently working on? I would be interested to learn more about your project. 

Please let me know if there is anything else that I can help you with. Furthermore...for everyone reading this message out there on the list-serve. Just like Nan, I am very interested in hearing more about historic cemetery excavations in you region or state. If you have references, pdf's or leads...I appreciate the help in this search.  

Best,
Jeremy Pye
Ph.D Student
University of Florida
Department of Anthropology


--- On Mon, 6/23/08, Nan A. Rothschild <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Nan A. Rothschild <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: urban cemeteries
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Monday, June 23, 2008, 2:52 PM
> Hi all,
> 
> First I want to thank the many respondants who answered my
> (and Diana  
> Wall's) query last year about urban site reports. We
> are working our  
> way thru the material you sent and it has been very
> helpful.
> 
> We have another question: does anyone know of excavations
> in white or  
> Euro-american cemeteries? We have information from
> African-American  
> cemeteries, and there are gravestone studies from
> Euro-American  
> cemeteries but we cannot find examples of excavation in the
> latter  
> (which is interesting, of course).
> 
> Thansk again for any information you have,
> 
> best,
> Nan
> 
> Nan A. Rothschild
> 
> Research Professor
> Barnard College
> 212 854-4315
> 
> Director of Museum Studies
> Columbia University
> 212 854-4977