Analysis of the church and graveyard memorials at Termonfeckin, Co. Louth reveals a complex web of identities within an overall community context of shared burial space. Each monument was commissioned independently by the family but in the context of what a local carver could produce and what was deemed appropriate and affordable in its community context. Families made a placemaking statement by erecting a memorial, defining the burial plot when most were not permanently marked. Issues of class, family and religion intersect in the memorials of the 19^th century, with reduced explicit variability in the 20^th century. The material characteristics of space, monument type, motifs, and materials combined with text commonalities and differences within the local community. The Irish rural graveyard was an active component in reinforcing aspects of community dynamics, and the patterns seen at Termonfeckin are still played out, albeit with localised variants, at many Irish rural graveyards.

For two decades, isotope biogeochemistry has allowed for the identification of first generation victims of the transatlantic slave trade in the Americas based on highly radiogenic strontium isotope ratios discovered in archaeological human remains from slavery contexts. However, as strontium isotope baseline data from most of Africa was absent these high strontium ratios were merely linked to sub-Saharan Africa at large, with little to no possibility of nuance regarding the actual regions enslaved people may have originated from. Together with our numerous collaborators, we recently developed regional and large-scale strontium isoscapes of sub-Saharan Africa based on environmental samples and random forest regressions, with a particular emphasis on West and western Central Africa from where populations were particularly heavily trafficked. We demonstrate how we can employ these isoscapes to predict the individual origins of enslaved individuals excavated in the Americas and elsewhere, allowing us to reconstruct their African roots and life histories.

Historical and archaeological research in Montgomery County, Maryland is helping to recover the location of lost African American burial sites. The research has been carried out by Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission staff, CRM contractors, and members of the public including descendants. The sites investigated illuminate post Civil War African American burial patterns including evidence that some African American families and institutions bought land on or near places where their family and ancestors were buried. Emerging results are also consistent with a working predictive model based on topography, farm boundaries and historical land use. These initiatives are providing more reliable locations for cemeteries in Montgomery County as well as a fuller context for appreciating the significance of these vulnerable sites.

Antebellum grave markers for African Americans are uncommon as most individuals were buried without benefit of formal gravestones. However, some of those which survive are extraordinary. The markers examined here commemorate Caesar Drake, a Revolutionary War soldier; Elisha Gaiter a sailor; and Anthony Clapp, a musician. Individually, they illustrate the lives of three exceptional people; collectively they highlight the grit, resilience, and courage of individuals who, in spite of the structural inequities engendered by a profoundly racist society, were able to craft meaningful lives, accomplish great things, and were well respected by their peers.

Construction of the Central Pacific Railroad portion of the Transcontinental Railroad relied heavily on labor by young overseas Chinese men who were hired and transported from southern China to the mountains and deserts of California, Nevada and Utah over a few months' time. Construction of the railroad predated widespread use of steam driven excavation machinery, thus the railroad largely depended on the manual labor of these men. Often working in extreme conditions, many workers died along the railroad between 1865 and 1869.

There were no cemeteries in which to bury the fallen Chinese. Despite these deaths, railroad work needed to rapidly proceed. The recourse was burial along the railroad grade. In this paper, the author discusses more than 20 grave locations recently identified in Utah during summer 2023 fieldwork, the creation of which probably followed Chinese burial customs.

A small community cemetery contacted the State Historical Society of North Dakota for information on locating unmarked burials, as the decendent community was interested in finding their relatives. In collaboration with the community, the archaeology division of the society conducted a geophysical survey, including GPR, electric resistivity, and multiple lens and thermal drone flights of the cemetery. This presentation discusses the findings of this survey.

In 1835, a law in Portugal forced every city and village to build cemeteries with well-defined characteristics: a walled place had to be able to have large tombs, permanent graves, and temporary graves. Nine years later it became mandatory to bury the deceased in a cemetery and church burials were forbidden, thus many cemeteries were built in the mid-19th century, either in large urban centers or in small rural areas. Considering these differences this paper aims to analyze several cemeteries in different areas of the country, some of them with a strong cultural identity, comparing large and small burial grounds and discussing if social representation and cultural behaviors regarding funeral rites and tombs can be related to urban and/or rural identity and how major superstructures such as religion would influence such behaviors towards death.