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Cemeteries are repositories of cultural information which offer clues to a society's perspective on life and death. Over the past several decades, cemetery landscapes have become more secular, graphic and personalized. Industrial era cemetery landscapes with their emphasis on conformity are giving way to post-industrial landscapes with their emphasis on individuality, unique accomplishments, and the looser norms that bind together our everyday worlds. A four-part model is proposed as a lens through which to analyze cemetery landscapes. It focuses attention on four elements the burial zone, the grave marker, the contiguous zone, and the land use zone. Evidence of change in cemetery environments is drawn largely from grave markers (permanent records of a person's life) and contiguous zones (ephemeral records that change and disappear) as they have been photographically documented in cemeteries across the U.S. and Canada (14 states and 2 provinces). In addition to municipal and church cemeteries, evidence is also presented from a family cemetery, a tribal cemetery, and a national cemetery. Increasingly common in cemeteries are more fully developed biographies of the deceased, more expressions of visual artistry, and more secular images (including references to education, work, tools, possessions, avocations, and organizational memberships). Religiosity, family relationships, and mournful good-byes remain the subject of many grave markings. Humor is still rare, but increasing. Traditional values, changing cultural attitudes and new technologies are driving these trends. Finally, the reader is pointed to a post-cemetery age in which cremation and ex-situ memorialization are increasingly common.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-9376-6_32

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