Cultural Changes In Gravestones

If you ever walk through a cemetery, you will probably notice that not every gravestone is going to be the same. Instead you are going to find unique gravestones that are all different shapes, sizes, and materials depending upon when the person was buried. This is because material culture and social expectations have changed over the decades. The data that we collected from Woodbine Cemetery gives us good insight into some of the trends over time and may lead to some explanation of why the gravestones have changed. By examining material culture changes over time, we will be able to better understand the trends in our data. Although the appearance of gravestones has changed in many ways, the two trends that we are focusing on are how the materials changed and how the form of the gravestones have changed.
According to the Material Culture and Public Humanities department at Virginia Tech, “material culture is the study of material or physical objects, as well as the placement of those objects in critical, theoretical and historical perspectives as the products of distinct cultures” (Material Cultures…). Changes in material culture are important to archaeologists because they can help to explain how the economy was doing at a certain time period and because it helps to explain many social aspects of life such as trends in styles and socioeconomic status. Many of these material culture changes can be seen when walking through a cemetery through the changing sizes, styles, and materials of the