As a matter of fact, we did find a pet dog burial from the 1950s at
the urban farmstead at the 1836-and-now-restored Block family house
at Historic Washington State Park in 1983. Oft-presented in slide
shows but not yet formally published, said burial will be in my
chapter in a forthcoming book edited by Carl Carlson-Drexler and
David Markus on diversity in the historical archeology of Arkansas.
To quote myself, "One might also note the discovery of the sad
evidence of a buried pet, an intact skeleton of a dog, on the site of
the former kitchen ell and thus dating after about 1950, with a
chicken bone in its larynx (Figure 3, dog skeleton). Unlike a
complete turkey carcass that was dumped into a hastily dug shallow
hole outside the perimeter of the kitchen (one does not eat poultry
that has died of an uncertain cause, explained informants), this dog
was carefully laid down in a grave on its right side, fore and hind
legs extended comfortably at right angles to the spine, its head a
little higher than the rest of the body. Not incidentally, the
remains were laid out with the head and back in perfect alignment
with the Block House, thus ultimately with the Southwest Trail to
which the town plat oriented. It was an act of the 1950s, yet deeply
affected by the spatial framework of Washington established in
1824. That framework provided a perhaps comforting moment of
regularity and routine a century and a quarter after the surveyor
laid down his tools."
At 10:59 PM 1/13/2013, you wrote:
>Hi there, I was wondering if anyone can provide me with some
>references to published material (rather than grey literature I
>can't get access to) regarding pet burials, particularly on 19th
>century farmstead sites? There doesn't seem to have been much
>written on this.
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