WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.840 --> 00:00:03.680 Oh hey, it's those discount Halloween socks that you'll buy 2 00:00:03.879 --> 00:00:07.240 November first and then wear all year ali ward back 3 00:00:07.320 --> 00:00:12.000 with a spooktober October finale. That's honestly maybe gonna give 4 00:00:12.039 --> 00:00:16.640 me nightmares. I've already had recurring night terrors about grave 5 00:00:16.679 --> 00:00:21.760 sites and tombstones and cemeteries and burial grounds. Oh boy, 6 00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:25.839 howdy shaver me timbers. Now, Halloween doesn't get much more 7 00:00:25.879 --> 00:00:28.440 on the no's than this episode. Will it be goth? 8 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:32.240 Will you be surprised? Will you never think about some 9 00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:36.399 things the same? Forever? All of those answers during this 10 00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:39.679 delightful discourse with an ologist who got her bachelor's in 11 00:00:39.880 --> 00:00:44.920 archaeology and a master's in historical archaeology, leading whole excavation 12 00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:48.399 team for months looking for lost burial grounds from the 13 00:00:48.479 --> 00:00:53.159 sixteen hundreds. And she also does ongoing research on gravestone 14 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:58.399 symbols and iconography and preserving historical burial sites. So this 15 00:00:58.479 --> 00:01:02.840 woman digs graves. Don't have plans for Halloween, don't worry, 16 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:06.200 She's got you covered. But before we dig in quick 17 00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:10.680 Thanks to patrons at patreon dot com slash ologies for 18 00:01:10.879 --> 00:01:13.359 making the show possible. You can join them you can 19 00:01:13.359 --> 00:01:15.400 hop in there for a buck a month. My love 20 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:19.200 is not expensive. And thanks to everyone who tells friends 21 00:01:19.239 --> 00:01:21.959 about the show and rates and tweets and grams and 22 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:24.480 reviews of course, so I can snoop them each week 23 00:01:24.519 --> 00:01:27.959 and then Dad barrass you by reading a fresh one 24 00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:32.359 like this. Obix Benge wrote, Hey, pod Dad, that's me. 25 00:01:32.920 --> 00:01:35.159 I had to listen to every last episode just to 26 00:01:35.159 --> 00:01:39.319 be extra certain before rating ologies. Spoiler from Munkenology to 27 00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:43.480 Kinetic Saltaicidology, it's been a solid five stars. What am 28 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:44.840 I supposed to do with the rest of my life 29 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:49.400 now in between Tuesdays? Obix Bene, I don't know. Re listen, 30 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:53.840 there you go and thank you. Also, okay tofology. Straight 31 00:01:53.959 --> 00:01:58.400 up Greek word here tafos means funeral or grave or tomb. 32 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:01.799 So let's just get into this wonderful episode in which 33 00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:07.120 we discuss trap saying, past tombs, the ethics of headstone cleaning, 34 00:02:07.439 --> 00:02:12.840 picnics in the graveyard, poltergeists, Goths, the best epitaphs, coffins 35 00:02:12.879 --> 00:02:19.639 and caskets, Puritans, witch trials, cemeteries versus graveyards. Is their difference? 36 00:02:19.800 --> 00:02:20.319 What is it? 37 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:24.680 And why you'll want to spend Halloween font spotting among 38 00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:27.159 the dead in an episode that I'll be honest, kind 39 00:02:27.159 --> 00:02:28.599 of fuck me up a little bit in terms of 40 00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:32.599 graveyard history, but I am richer for it. With archaeologist, 41 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:59.159 tombstone conservator, scholar, and tafologist Robin S. Lacy. Okay, first thing, 42 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:01.960 if you could pronounce your first and last name and 43 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:03.280 your pronounce. 44 00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:04.039 Yeah, Robin Lacy. 45 00:03:04.479 --> 00:03:08.639 She here awesome, Robin Lacy. Do you know that there 46 00:03:08.919 --> 00:03:13.000 is a word and its tafology is the study of graves? 47 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:16.360 Yes? Yeah, I've heard of that one you have. 48 00:03:16.639 --> 00:03:18.919 Okay, is this a commonly used word or is it 49 00:03:18.919 --> 00:03:19.639 pretty obscure? 50 00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:23.719 I see it a lot on like Instagram and stuff. 51 00:03:23.759 --> 00:03:29.919 People will describe themselves as like a taffa file, but 52 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:33.360 I don't see it as much in like archaeology. 53 00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:37.919 I would imagine as an archaeologist, you would be more 54 00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:40.919 apt to describe yourself as a tafologist and a tapha file. 55 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:45.280 You're not just tripping about a cemetery taking photos, right. 56 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:48.639 I mean, I feel like that's half of my research, 57 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:53.240 just stumbling around the gravestones. I would more just describe 58 00:03:53.280 --> 00:03:54.879 myself as an archaeologist though. 59 00:03:55.039 --> 00:04:01.919 Right would are you a goth. No, I'm straight up 60 00:04:01.919 --> 00:04:02.719 asked that question. 61 00:04:04.360 --> 00:04:07.960 No, I'm like the least a goss graveyard person. 62 00:04:08.120 --> 00:04:12.439 Basically, do you find that a lot of other archaeologists 63 00:04:12.479 --> 00:04:16.600 who work in the burial space, both figuratively and academically, 64 00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:21.439 do they tend to be more of the recreationally spooky 65 00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:23.279 or are they history and arts? 66 00:04:24.959 --> 00:04:29.040 I think definitely both. Everything we do in archaeology deals 67 00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:32.639 with basically deals with death. Everyone that we study, for 68 00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:34.959 the most part, unless you're dealing with the living community, 69 00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:36.920 everything that comes out of the ground is from someone 70 00:04:36.959 --> 00:04:39.920 who's already died. So even if you're doing archaeology and 71 00:04:39.959 --> 00:04:43.040 you're not even looking at burials per se, you're still 72 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:45.800 in some way dealing with death as a theme. 73 00:04:46.399 --> 00:04:50.000 Yeah, I guess archaeology is like one big est state sale, 74 00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:53.759 you know what I mean? Like what they do with this? 75 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:56.160 What kind of a person were they? What narrative can 76 00:04:56.199 --> 00:04:58.920 I try to understand based on these artifacts? 77 00:04:59.040 --> 00:04:59.199 Right? 78 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:04.199 How did you end up in this space? Are you 79 00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:08.439 from the Eastern Seaboard? Did you grow up around spooky cemeteries? 80 00:05:09.759 --> 00:05:13.240 So I'm from Halifax, Nova Scotia originally, but I grew 81 00:05:13.319 --> 00:05:16.480 up in BC. I wouldn't say, I grew up in cemeteries, 82 00:05:16.879 --> 00:05:19.720 but during like family trips and stuff, my family would 83 00:05:19.759 --> 00:05:21.920 always go to historic sites and if there was like 84 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:25.240 someone really interesting buried or somewhere, or people told us that, 85 00:05:25.319 --> 00:05:28.800 like the monuments in a specific graveyard were very impressive, 86 00:05:28.839 --> 00:05:31.160 we would go look at them. So it's definitely like 87 00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:35.439 something I was comfortable going to and being interested in. 88 00:05:35.680 --> 00:05:39.399 But initially I wanted to do either maritime archaeology, which 89 00:05:39.439 --> 00:05:42.519 I know you talked about on the show before, or 90 00:05:42.839 --> 00:05:45.680 archaeology in meso America. And then I did a field 91 00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:49.839 school in my undergraduate degree through the University of Liverpool, 92 00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:54.079 and we were doing the surveys of graveyards in Ireland 93 00:05:54.519 --> 00:05:57.279 and it was like rainy and cold, and I sat 94 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:01.639 down and we started recording like everybody's names on the stone, 95 00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:04.680 what styles headstones they were, and I was just like, well, 96 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:06.319 I think this is where I'm gonna be for the 97 00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:07.160 rest of my life. 98 00:06:07.759 --> 00:06:10.519 I asked Robin if she ever listened to the Smiths 99 00:06:10.759 --> 00:06:13.399 cemetery gates like on repeat. 100 00:06:13.879 --> 00:06:17.560 So we go inside and were grave stones all those 101 00:06:17.680 --> 00:06:24.800 people below those lives were they know, oh the loves 102 00:06:24.959 --> 00:06:31.399 just back none they were born. 103 00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:30.720 And so. 104 00:06:33.399 --> 00:06:36.959 Gone she was like, no, and I can't blame her. 105 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:42.079 I listened to Morrissey before he crumbled before our very eyes, 106 00:06:42.319 --> 00:06:46.439 like ancient marble. So being sixteen watching her crushed smoke 107 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:49.519 clothes and complain about his dad in a cemetery was 108 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:51.959 not something that we had in common. That's fine. There 109 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:55.839 was a lot of recreational graveyard hanging in my own 110 00:06:55.879 --> 00:07:00.439 particular youth, But straight off the gate. As someone who 111 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:05.319 studies burial grounds, cemeteries, graveyards, are they a good place 112 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:09.000 to picnic or is that very rude? 113 00:07:09.319 --> 00:07:11.800 It definitely depends on the site. I know that some 114 00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:15.360 larger sites like Mount Auburn and Cambridge don't let people 115 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:19.240 do that just because it is such a significant historic site, 116 00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:21.240 and like you wouldn't go sit and have a picnic 117 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:25.040 in downtown Boston, other like rural sites, if you're going 118 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:28.040 there to visit family members, I think definitely you can 119 00:07:28.079 --> 00:07:31.879 have a picnic in a cemetery. I've known that when 120 00:07:31.879 --> 00:07:34.360 we're doing field work and graveyards, you are just going 121 00:07:34.439 --> 00:07:37.079 to eat your lunch there. It's in the Victorian period 122 00:07:37.199 --> 00:07:39.600 they would have they would go and have picnics and 123 00:07:39.639 --> 00:07:42.680 can go for walks and graveyards very regularly, so kind 124 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:45.639 of doing it now is almost keeping in that tradition. 125 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:49.040 Okay, that makes me feel a little better because out 126 00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:52.079 here in LA we have the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which 127 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:54.720 is like a straight up night life than you. Like, 128 00:07:54.759 --> 00:07:56.720 I saw a concert there a few weeks ago. They 129 00:07:56.759 --> 00:08:00.399 have screenings and so cool, right, But it seems like 130 00:08:00.439 --> 00:08:03.800 there's different schools of thoughts in terms of, hey, everyone 131 00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:05.839 buried here would have wanted to go to a party, 132 00:08:06.279 --> 00:08:08.639 so why not have a party. And this is very 133 00:08:08.720 --> 00:08:12.199 very you know, sacred holed ground. But how does it 134 00:08:12.319 --> 00:08:15.639 differ in different cultures, different parts of the world how 135 00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:18.279 we dispose of bodies. Is it a very Western thing 136 00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:21.800 to bury your whole skeleton and have like a plot 137 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:25.040 of land or is that pretty worldwide? 138 00:08:26.680 --> 00:08:29.920 I mean definitely, everybody around the world has different burial 139 00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:33.639 customs and funerary customs and even ideas about what dying 140 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:37.039 is and how it takes place when death happens. But 141 00:08:37.240 --> 00:08:40.919 it's definitely a very like North American idea that when 142 00:08:40.960 --> 00:08:44.159 you buy a plot of land and bury an entire 143 00:08:44.200 --> 00:08:46.440 body in it, that that is something that you own 144 00:08:46.559 --> 00:08:50.000 for all of eternity. Basically, we have so much space 145 00:08:50.039 --> 00:08:54.440 in North America, and this idea of burial and perpetuity 146 00:08:54.519 --> 00:08:57.519 and like your final resting place is sort of ingrained 147 00:08:57.559 --> 00:09:00.360 into how we see a funeral and how we see 148 00:09:00.519 --> 00:09:03.759 a burial space. But if you go to Luxembourg or 149 00:09:03.799 --> 00:09:06.440 places in Europe that don't have as much space, the 150 00:09:06.480 --> 00:09:10.519 burial space for the body itself is something that's temporary, 151 00:09:11.039 --> 00:09:14.320 and after not too many years, like a decade or 152 00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:18.000 so or twenty thirty years, they'll ask the family if 153 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:22.519 they want to renew basically a lease on that burial space, 154 00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:26.000 and often the families don't want to anymore, so like 155 00:09:26.399 --> 00:09:29.960 once the body's decomposed, they cremate them and then the 156 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:32.240 remains are put in a sort of like a mass 157 00:09:32.279 --> 00:09:34.200 burial space for cremated remains. 158 00:09:34.559 --> 00:09:38.480 Oh, I didn't know that that makes a lot of sense, 159 00:09:38.519 --> 00:09:40.840 though it always seemed a little odd that were like, 160 00:09:40.919 --> 00:09:43.120 this is my plot of land, because if everyone did 161 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:46.600 that for the last several million years, there wouldn't be 162 00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:48.279 any space that wasn't a graveyard. 163 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:51.440 It seems exactly. I mean, I feel like a lot 164 00:09:51.480 --> 00:09:53.919 of Europe there isn't a lot of space. It's not 165 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:57.120 a grave yard. But yeah, it's very like a North 166 00:09:57.159 --> 00:09:59.879 American idea that that's a space you get to own, 167 00:10:00.480 --> 00:10:03.320 or your corpse gets to own for hundreds of years 168 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:04.799 after you're no longer there. 169 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:05.279 M h. 170 00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:09.080 And what's the difference between a graveyard and a cemetery 171 00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:13.240 and a burial ground? Walk me through literally trapes me 172 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:16.200 through some of these different plots. 173 00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:21.240 Yeah, So the terminology is like in some ways interchangeable 174 00:10:21.279 --> 00:10:24.639 depending on what country you're in. But in my research, 175 00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:27.600 a burial ground is a space that could like that 176 00:10:27.759 --> 00:10:32.240 term could be used interchangeably, like in seventeenth century New England, 177 00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:34.759 which is one of my study areas a burial ground, 178 00:10:34.879 --> 00:10:38.600 that term was used by Puritan settlers specifically to mean 179 00:10:38.639 --> 00:10:41.759 an unconsecrated space for burials, because that was something that 180 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:46.600 they did. But if it's space for graves that is 181 00:10:47.039 --> 00:10:50.200 around a church, that would be the churchyard also the graveyard. 182 00:10:50.840 --> 00:10:53.840 Graveyards can also be not attached to the church but 183 00:10:53.879 --> 00:10:57.399 still directly associated with the church, whereas burial grounds and 184 00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:01.759 cemeteries are often like municipally owned. That's not always it's 185 00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:05.360 all murky. But cemeteries as a term is really interesting 186 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:09.039 because a cemetery is sort of comes from this like 187 00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:13.480 rural garden burial space aesthetics, the rural garden cemetery movement, 188 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:17.679 and that didn't come to North America until eighteen thirty 189 00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:20.559 one when Mount Auburn was constructed in Cambridge. So anything 190 00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:22.480 older than that it is technically not a cemetery in 191 00:11:22.519 --> 00:11:23.159 North America. 192 00:11:23.320 --> 00:11:28.919 Oh fun fact, I am sitting between Cambridge and Watertown 193 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:31.120 outside of Boston. I just looked it up and I'm 194 00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:36.720 one mile away from Mount Auburn Cemetery and it's dark out, 195 00:11:36.879 --> 00:11:39.519 I'm not wearing pants, and the cemetery is closed. I'm 196 00:11:39.559 --> 00:11:42.879 in a hotel recording this right now. I leave Boston tomorrow 197 00:11:42.919 --> 00:11:46.320 and I'm a mile away from Mount Omborn Cemetery. There's 198 00:11:46.440 --> 00:11:50.879 five thousand trees there and ten miles of winding roads 199 00:11:51.039 --> 00:11:54.159 and bird watching. From what I gather, it is like 200 00:11:54.200 --> 00:11:57.919 the Disneyland of old Coool cemeteries. Even the word cemetery 201 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:00.919 was a rebrand in this era and it means a 202 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:02.559 sleeping place in Greek. 203 00:12:02.919 --> 00:12:03.200 Nice. 204 00:12:03.399 --> 00:12:07.639 Yeah, what happened in the eighteen thirties where suddenly there 205 00:12:07.799 --> 00:12:11.360 was this shift was were there like some bros that 206 00:12:11.399 --> 00:12:16.440 were like, We're here to disrupt the graveyard industry I. 207 00:12:16.399 --> 00:12:19.159 Feel like probably yes, you hear about like the changing 208 00:12:20.159 --> 00:12:23.120 ideas of death in America and in Canada as well. 209 00:12:23.399 --> 00:12:25.799 It was a lot of people being kind of freaked 210 00:12:25.799 --> 00:12:28.759 out about bodies after a while. Whereas you used to 211 00:12:28.759 --> 00:12:31.600 be buried a little bit closer to the areas that 212 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:35.440 you were like living in, when those spaces got full, 213 00:12:36.399 --> 00:12:39.679 people got a little bit freaked out when they could 214 00:12:39.759 --> 00:12:42.960 smell the bodies. Sometimes these burial grounds and there were 215 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:45.919 some in New York like this that got so overcrowded 216 00:12:45.960 --> 00:12:49.279 that you could smell the decomposition. Oho, and when people 217 00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:52.559 started getting sick, they were worried it was from with 218 00:12:52.799 --> 00:12:56.279 air quotes, the miasma coming from the bodies. So they 219 00:12:56.279 --> 00:12:58.200 were like, there are no more bodies allowed to be 220 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:01.279 buried inside of New York City. Let's move the graves. 221 00:13:01.399 --> 00:13:03.919 So yeah, it was like this movement to sort of 222 00:13:04.240 --> 00:13:09.200 pastoralize I guess, the graveyards by making these more open, 223 00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:13.240 like beautiful airy spaces. But at the same time it 224 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:15.480 came a little bit from people being scared of bodies. 225 00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:18.679 Oh wow. So it was a little bit of a 226 00:13:18.679 --> 00:13:21.639 column a column bee like we just are honoring you, 227 00:13:21.679 --> 00:13:28.000 please turn into liquid and fungus elsewhere absolutely makes sense. Okay, 228 00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:31.639 so you're getting your PhD right now. How did you 229 00:13:32.279 --> 00:13:35.440 narrow down your studies. 230 00:13:37.799 --> 00:13:41.639 With great difficulty? I'm going to say so I did 231 00:13:41.879 --> 00:13:44.879 my masters at the same school that I'm at right now, 232 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:48.399 Memorial University of Newfoundlands and Lambrador. And for my masters, 233 00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:53.240 I was looking at sort of seventeenth century burial landscape development, 234 00:13:54.120 --> 00:13:56.519 as usually the short form of saying it, which is 235 00:13:56.559 --> 00:14:00.399 like how burial spaces were organized in communities, and then 236 00:14:00.399 --> 00:14:03.120 how that related to other communities, and if you can 237 00:14:03.159 --> 00:14:06.440 take that information and see if there were overarching trends 238 00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:09.720 like did everyone in the seventeenth century put all of 239 00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:12.799 their bodies in the center of town? And for my PhD, 240 00:14:13.080 --> 00:14:16.440 I was like what were other countries doing in North 241 00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:18.519 America at the time, because I'd only really looked at 242 00:14:18.519 --> 00:14:21.519 British sites at that point. But then also I was 243 00:14:21.559 --> 00:14:25.480 really interested in sort of looking at ways that these 244 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:29.679 burial spaces that were established through colonialism, how you could 245 00:14:29.799 --> 00:14:34.679 see bodies represented in them that weren't just of white sellars, 246 00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:36.840 because that's sort of the narrative that we get fed 247 00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:39.919 that all the sellers were white, which they clearly weren't, 248 00:14:40.360 --> 00:14:42.320 and a lot of them were there against their will 249 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:45.080 and being buried in spaces that weren't traditional to them. 250 00:14:45.120 --> 00:14:49.000 And how how visible that is m or not visible? 251 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:50.200 Right? 252 00:14:50.799 --> 00:14:54.399 What kinds of facts and history and narratives have you 253 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:56.399 been learning about doing that. 254 00:14:56.600 --> 00:14:59.519 I've been doing a lot of reading on the African 255 00:14:59.519 --> 00:15:01.600 burial g found in New York City and the community 256 00:15:01.720 --> 00:15:05.600 archaeology that was sounded like a little mismanage at the beginning, 257 00:15:05.639 --> 00:15:07.440 and then they brought in a lot of community partners 258 00:15:07.519 --> 00:15:09.919 to make it the National Park site that it is today. 259 00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:13.159 Okay, this information is going to be rough, but it's 260 00:15:13.399 --> 00:15:16.639 terrible that more people don't know this. So thirty feet 261 00:15:16.679 --> 00:15:21.240 below Broadway in Manhattan, excavations uncovered a six acre burial 262 00:15:21.279 --> 00:15:25.320 plot with, according to the National Park Service, fifteen thousand 263 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:29.279 intact skeletal remains of enslaved and free Africans who lived 264 00:15:29.320 --> 00:15:32.759 and worked in colonial New York dating from the sixteen 265 00:15:32.799 --> 00:15:36.440 thirties to seventeen ninety five. So, in nineteen ninety three 266 00:15:36.639 --> 00:15:39.559 the remains were sent to Howard University in Washington, d C. 267 00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:43.240 To be examined by archaeology teams, and in two thousand 268 00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:46.919 and three they were reinterred in Manhattan in what was 269 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:51.639 called a ceremonial cradle moving event. So the discovery rocked 270 00:15:51.799 --> 00:15:55.679 a lot of historical assumptions and it's caused historians to 271 00:15:55.720 --> 00:15:59.200 rethink their understanding of enslavement in the area. So it's 272 00:15:59.279 --> 00:16:02.440 a reminder of just how much history is covered up 273 00:16:02.480 --> 00:16:05.039 and buried in many cases quite literally. 274 00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:08.399 And so far it's been quite difficult to find any 275 00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:11.159 evidence from the seventeenth century, which is the time period 276 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:14.600 I'm really interested in looking at showing black or indigenous 277 00:16:14.600 --> 00:16:16.840 people being buried in these spaces because a lot of 278 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:19.399 times they didn't get grave markers, or they weren't the 279 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:21.679 ones writing the records, so they're not the records we have. 280 00:16:22.919 --> 00:16:26.679 Yeah, how far back do a lot of records go? 281 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:30.120 How were they even kept? Are there books that have 282 00:16:30.240 --> 00:16:35.799 survived in either municipal records or in churchyardyard records? 283 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:39.919 Yeah, so there definitely are books. It helps if people 284 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.200 were wealthy and had the money to record things properly, 285 00:16:44.279 --> 00:16:47.159 Like there's a book that Samuel de Champlain wrote about 286 00:16:47.480 --> 00:16:50.279 his trips to North America. It's just called I think Voyages. 287 00:16:50.440 --> 00:16:53.519 So for those not well versed in their French colonists. 288 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:58.240 Samuel D. Champlain was a French colonist. There you go. 289 00:16:58.519 --> 00:17:00.960 So he sailed across the Atlantic over or twenty times 290 00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:04.519 and founded Quebec. He was like Bocher, he's very cold. 291 00:17:05.160 --> 00:17:07.680 And from that we have maps of Quebec city and 292 00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:11.839 we have maps of an island called Saint Croix from 293 00:17:12.039 --> 00:17:15.640 like sixteen thirteen, so we know exactly where on that island. 294 00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:18.480 In particular, they had a graveyard and they had a church, 295 00:17:18.519 --> 00:17:21.079 which is amazing. And for other sites that I've worked on, 296 00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:23.720 we have no records all from the time period talking 297 00:17:23.720 --> 00:17:26.200 about that kind of thing, and yeah, if stuff survived 298 00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:30.920 well enough in perfect circumstances and or if the people 299 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:34.240 were really important is often a good example of things 300 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:36.519 that will have been kept from the seventeenth century, because 301 00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:40.160 that's four hundred years ago by this point. And one 302 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:43.240 of my favorite documents is the diary of Samuel Seawall, 303 00:17:44.119 --> 00:17:46.599 who he was a judge and he was a participant 304 00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:49.920 in the witch trials as well. But he kept a 305 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.400 diary from It's on my desk from sixteen seventy four 306 00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:58.319 to seventeen twenty nine. He wrote about like all the 307 00:17:58.359 --> 00:18:00.880 funerals he attended, which was like all of them apparently, 308 00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:02.960 because there's hundreds of records in there. It's amazing. 309 00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:06.440 Wow. What were the funerals like back then? 310 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:14.119 Well, Seawall was a Puritan, very very Puritan judge person, 311 00:18:15.079 --> 00:18:18.759 so he writes not too much detail. They didn't really 312 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:21.880 have too much like pomp and ceremony in the earlier 313 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:26.480 seventeenth century with that religion, so they would be like 314 00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:30.319 church bells, maybe people would like not even say a 315 00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:33.039 prayer over the coffin. And then that started to change, 316 00:18:33.079 --> 00:18:35.079 and you can tell in his writings that he doesn't 317 00:18:35.160 --> 00:18:37.559 like that very much, and he'll be like, talking about 318 00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:39.279 a coffin going in the ground, tod be like that 319 00:18:39.359 --> 00:18:41.559 one had a cross on it, and I've never seen 320 00:18:41.559 --> 00:18:45.559 that before. It's really funny, Okay. 321 00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:48.160 So I found a passage of this, hoping for some 322 00:18:48.359 --> 00:18:54.279 Darwin level emo laments, but rather it's stuff like October eleventh, 323 00:18:54.559 --> 00:18:57.680 sixteen ninety two. Went to the funeral of missus Sarah 324 00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:01.079 Oliver widow age seventy two years, buried in the New 325 00:19:01.119 --> 00:19:06.720 Burying Place, a very good, modest humble plane, liberal matron 326 00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:10.559 scarves and gloves. So I guess it was early October, 327 00:19:11.480 --> 00:19:14.440 just under the falling golden leaves of a graveyard. And 328 00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:16.200 you know he wanted to write like, holy shit is 329 00:19:16.200 --> 00:19:19.240 pumpkin weather y'all, but he was like scarves and gloves, 330 00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:22.920 keep it low key. Come on, When did coffins and 331 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:26.559 caskets get more and more elaborate. 332 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:29.920 That's not something that I study like specifically. I'm more 333 00:19:29.960 --> 00:19:34.599 of a landscape above the surface in that respect, But 334 00:19:34.759 --> 00:19:37.920 there are a lot of really interesting examples going back 335 00:19:37.960 --> 00:19:42.079 to like the sixteenth century of coffins. There's seventeenth century 336 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:45.200 lead coffins that exist. I know. In the nineteenth century 337 00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:49.079 they started standardizing like coffin hardware, like the handles and 338 00:19:49.119 --> 00:19:51.880 the little like filigrees you could nail on the top 339 00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:54.559 to decorate it. There would be catalogs of them. So 340 00:19:54.880 --> 00:19:58.599 it definitely went from a period where not everyone could 341 00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:01.599 afford one, or they're even be a communal coffin that 342 00:20:01.640 --> 00:20:04.039 would open up and put a person in the grave 343 00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:09.519 and then they'd take this like store coffin. Wow, yeah, 344 00:20:09.599 --> 00:20:11.759 those there is like a parish coffin. It was amazing 345 00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:14.160 you could borrow it. But like as the seventeenth and 346 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:17.359 eighteenth century happened, it became something that was more affordable 347 00:20:17.400 --> 00:20:20.079 for everyone. So you thought, start seeing a lot more 348 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:23.559 like simple coffins or just like ornate coffins that have 349 00:20:23.720 --> 00:20:27.359 these objects on the outsides that are like mass produced. 350 00:20:27.400 --> 00:20:31.920 Basically okay, so some fun trivia caskets are four sided 351 00:20:31.960 --> 00:20:36.640 and square, think of like a banana loaf, and coffins 352 00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:40.680 are hexagonal and they fit your shoulders and then they 353 00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:43.799 taper the feet and they look like, ah, scary. So 354 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:47.440 why the trend hopping? Well, the violence and all the 355 00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:50.880 bloodshed of the Civil War changed the way that the 356 00:20:50.920 --> 00:20:55.759 funeral businesses sold their goods. So embalming took off because 357 00:20:55.799 --> 00:20:58.880 soldiers' bodies needed to last the trip back home, and 358 00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:02.920 coffins were deemed kind of creepily body shaped. Suddenly people 359 00:21:02.960 --> 00:21:05.839 want to death to seem a little bit less deathy. 360 00:21:06.319 --> 00:21:10.519 Speaking of horrors, how old were you when you saw Poltergeist? 361 00:21:11.279 --> 00:21:12.680 I have never seen polter get. 362 00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:15.240 What how is that possible? 363 00:21:16.119 --> 00:21:19.119 I know, I don't like a horror movies. I'm a 364 00:21:19.240 --> 00:21:23.480 very I think odd person who studies great. 365 00:21:24.960 --> 00:21:29.799 I mean, do you know what it's about? Oh my god, 366 00:21:29.880 --> 00:21:33.000 Oh my god, Robin. It's about a family in the 367 00:21:33.079 --> 00:21:36.079 suburbs who buys a house and then they find out 368 00:21:36.359 --> 00:21:40.279 that they didn't properly move the graveyard. Hence they get 369 00:21:40.319 --> 00:21:44.400 Poulter goosted hardcore excellent, Like, how much of your work 370 00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:50.359 deals with moving gravestones or moving cemeteries? How often do 371 00:21:50.440 --> 00:21:54.920 they just move the gravestones and not the bodies A. 372 00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:59.920 Lot of the time, Yeah, a lot of the time. 373 00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:03.960 If you weren't wealthy, your grave just stayed right there 374 00:22:04.039 --> 00:22:06.079 and they would just put some more dirt on top 375 00:22:06.119 --> 00:22:08.480 of it to sort of level out the gibbots in 376 00:22:08.559 --> 00:22:12.400 the ground. Often when you see records saying that they 377 00:22:12.519 --> 00:22:14.720 moved a graveyard, they just moved the headstones. 378 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:23.440 Oh my god, the bodies, the bodies, and you only 379 00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:26.640 move that sounds move that. 380 00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:30.799 Okay. So that was from the film Poltergeist, co written 381 00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:34.160 by Steven Spielberg. And yes, tiny spoiler, but y'all have 382 00:22:34.200 --> 00:22:37.400 had thirty years to catch this flick, okay, so see 383 00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:41.079 it at your own risk. It's the worst. It's so scary. Also, 384 00:22:41.079 --> 00:22:44.519 they used real human skeletons in it, which the actors 385 00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:47.720 who were working with the skeletons didn't know until after. 386 00:22:48.039 --> 00:22:50.799 So zero out of ten do not like or support 387 00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:55.200 that practice. But yes, gravestones way easier to move than graves. 388 00:22:55.640 --> 00:22:57.200 No spoilers there, I mean. 389 00:22:57.119 --> 00:22:58.559 Because most of the time. 390 00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:03.200 So does that mean in certain parts of the world, 391 00:23:03.519 --> 00:23:10.759 particularly this newly colonized continent we call Merca, that as 392 00:23:10.799 --> 00:23:14.000 they were moving westward and maybe cities were getting more congested, 393 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:16.440 they just built right on frickin' top of stuff. 394 00:23:17.319 --> 00:23:18.559 Oh yeah, definitely. 395 00:23:19.400 --> 00:23:24.240 Do archaeologists ever Are they ever called to construction sites? 396 00:23:24.359 --> 00:23:27.000 Is like a big oopsie. Definitely a lot of bodies 397 00:23:27.039 --> 00:23:27.400 down here. 398 00:23:27.519 --> 00:23:31.839 Yeah, So like in commercial archaeology, if if there's a 399 00:23:31.880 --> 00:23:35.079 body found, we would get called for sure. That's not 400 00:23:35.160 --> 00:23:38.319 what the construction people want to hear. So there's sometimes 401 00:23:38.440 --> 00:23:41.359