I don't have a clue, but I'd like to say I think this is an important
question, esp. for management of cemeteries as sites. This area of
management is becoming more important as laws are changed in regard to the
archaeological study of human remains, burials and grave goods, reflecting
increased public concern. We've all heard that cemeteries can exceed their
legally-defined limits as to position of graves, and that they almost all
exceed the number of marked graves, due to loss of stones, loss of plot
records, or relandscaping. Two suggestions:
1. Design a sampling or excavation program to provide such data--
especially relevant to cemetery sites included in mitigations or
removal projects.
2. Contact people in the cemetery industry--how do they feel about
these questions with regard to the properties they manage? This
might be a bit difficult--doubtless, this is a sensitive subject.
At 03:48 PM 10/15/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Dear list:
>
>Has anyone out there ever tried to even roughly quantify, for a particular
>time and place, what percentage of people that died made it into marked
>graves, and what percentage of those graves survive to the present day?
>
>For example, if 1000 people died in a rural southern county between 1870 and
>1880, how many were buried in marked graves? And how many of those graves
>might still be identifiable?
>
>This is obviously dependent on a whole host of factors, including
>race/ethnicity, religion, economic factors, settlement history, etc., not to
>mention the type of markers used, nature of subsequent development, etc.,
>etc. But does anyone have any rules of thumb, regression formulae, etc.
>that they would like to share?
>
>********************************
>
>Paul A. Webb
>TRC Garrow Associates, Inc.
>6340 Quadrangle Drive, Suite 200
>Chapel Hill, NC 27514
>
>(919) 419-7531
>(919) 419-7501 fax
>
>********************************
>
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