American Antiquity · 1966 · 179 citations · 0 references
HumanitiesAnthropologyArchaeologyExperimental ArchaeologyPrehistoric ArchaeologyUrban ArchaeologyArchaeological ContextArchaeological Material CultureColonial ArchaeologyAncient Experimental ArchaeologyCemetery IconographyCherub DecorationStyle Change Analysis
Seventeenth‑ and eighteenth‑century Massachusetts gravestones feature a traditional set of designs with distinct spatial and temporal limits. The study aims to treat these designs as archaeological phenomena to test methods for inferring diffusion, design evolution, and the relationship between folk‑art traditions and the culture that produced them, with future work promising insights into experimental archaeology, kinship, demographics, style change, and religious change. The authors analyze the gravestone designs as archaeological artifacts and apply methods to infer diffusion, design evolution, and cultural relationships. Early death’s‑head motifs reflect Puritan attitudes toward death, while later cherubs, willow trees, and urns signal a shift away from those values; cherubs appeared first in Cambridge’s urban class but spread rapidly to peripheral districts, and the imperfect reproduction of designs produced distinct local styles whose spatial‑temporal distribution reveals how religious change unfolded across colonial regions.
Abstract Seventeenth and eighteenth-century gravestones in Massachusetts are decorated with a traditional set of designs which have distinctive spatial and temporal limits. By treating them as archaeological phenomena, one can demonstrate and test methods of inferring diffusion, design evolution, and relationships between a folk-art tradition and the culture which produced it. Early popularity of death's-head designs reflects Puritan attitudes toward death, while the later cherub, willow tree, and urn motifs indicate the breakdown of these values. Although cherubs appear earliest among an innovating urban class in Cambridge, they remain a relatively minor type in this central area but are rapidly adopted in outlying districts further removed from the center of influence. Imperfect reproduction of certain designs gives rise to distinctive local styles of other areas. The distribution of these local styles in time and space provides further insights regarding religious change in the Colonial period, including a clear indication of how this change proceeded in different geographical areas at different times. Future analysis of this material promises to be quite productive in the areas of experimental archaeology, kinship analysis, demographic studies, style change, and religious change in Colonial America.