Three thoughts on disturbing burials:
 
1. Many American religions in the 19th century aggressively warned
against too much of a concern over corporeal remains as it implied a
diminished confidence in eternal life.  Since the turn of the century
these ideas have pretty much gone by the wayside in most of mainstream
society.  This change has been accelerated by the evolution of the burial
plot as a forum for the public display of wealth.
 
2.  Perceptions of the dead and our association with them have changed
over this period.  Our dead are no longer mostly small children but
adults with personal histories and a greater need for memorials.  With
the development of the "now you see it now you don't" funeral business
and the move from the rural lifestyle with its upfront view of life and
death, death has at once become rarer and less comprehensible.  Since we
seem to form our perceptions of death while still children, decisions
regarding cemetery disposal may reflect ideas about death that are half a
century old.
 
3.  It is also important to distinguish between concern for the skeleton
and concern for the burial, burial plot, or cemetery.  This is
particularly true here in the west.  Originally, burial plots were
thought of as places to store the dead.  They were protected but had
little ornamentation and weak links to the overall community.  As
communities developed, these locations took on new meanings.  They proved
the primacy of early settlers, now in positions of influence, they
provided greenspace and played important roles in geographic landmarking,
and they allowed a touchstone to the past.  An increased reluctance to
disturb burials may be more related to similar protective measures for
old houses, large trees and established parks than to any specific
concern over the skeleton itself.
 
everett bassett
 
 
 
 
> Hi all:
>
> I was having an electronic conversation with somebody the other day,
and
> somewhere along the way I made the point that EuroAmerican attitudes
toward
> human skeletal remains have changed in the past forty years or so. I
only
> have anecdotal evidence for this--I'm referring to stories about
'moving
> graveyards' which involved moving the grave stone alone or using a
bucket
> auger to get a little bone out to give to the survivors or the
disastrous
> farming policy of fence-row to fence-row plowing when lots of
gravestones
> were simply taken away and discarded. I argued that that is less likely
to
> happen now. Does anybody know of anthro research in the last few years
that
> would support (or even dispute) this notion?
>
> thanks
>
> kris
> Kris Hirst
> Office of the State Archaeologist
> The University of Iowa
> [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
> <http://archaeology.miningco.com>
> Scribal Traditions http://scribaltraditions.com