Annia Cherryson, Zoe Crossland & Sarah Tarlow. A fine and private place: the archaeology of death and burial in post-medieval Britain and Ireland.

Orser, Charles E., Jr.

ANNIA CHERRYSON, ZOE CROSSLAND & SARAH TARLOW. A fine and private place: the archaeology of death and burial in post-medieval Britain and Ireland (Leicester Archaeology Monograph 22). x+276 pages, 82 illustrations, 21 tables. 2012. Leicester: University of Leicester; 978-0-9560179-87 paperback 32 [pounds sterling].

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Archaeologists have been interested in mortuary remains and funerary monuments since the beginning of the discipline. Burials have the power both to enchant and to instil a sense of finality. Until the 1990s, it was generally true that archaeologists in Britain and Ireland avoided or ignored post-medieval mortuary contexts. Researchers oftentimes showed greater interest in standing monuments and commemorations than in the human remains and the funerary equipment associated with them. As post-medieval research attains higher visibility in Britain and especially in Ireland, studies such as this one will assume increasing significance. This important publication will receive widespread attention by post-medieval archaeologists, but it should also be a resource for anthropologists, sociologists and others researching historic burial practices and the ideologies that informed them.

The volume is divided into two sections, each of which--even if standing alone--has considerable value. The first section provides an informative cultural-historical overview of burial practices from the sixteenth to the end of the nineteenth century. The second section presents a gazetteer of the post-medieval human burial sites that archaeologists have excavated in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Part 1 is divided into seven chapters. An introduction provides the overall context for post-medieval death and burial. Distribution maps and charts indicate, perhaps unsurprisingly, that most of the investigated sites have been found in London, with southern England providing the majority of sites overall. The number of human individuals found in these buried deposits range from one to over 200, with the contexts including hospitals, workhouses, prisons, medical waste, and cases of war, disease and drowning. (For copyright reasons, the authors cannot present the Irish distribution on the maps or in the charts. This is unfortunate, but dedicated readers can compile this information from the gazetteer if they wish.) By exploring religious contexts, the importance of folk belief, the role of medicine, and many other pertinent topics in the introduction, the authors appropriately establish the scope of the chapters that follow. They summarise their conclusions in the final chapter by identifying the trends and themes that have emerged in the preceding five chapters.

The chapters between the Introduction and the Conclusions provide the volume's substance. They are entitled 'The preparation and presentation of the post-medieval corpse', 'Enclosing the corpse', 'The burial landscape', 'By choice, circumstance or compulsion: unusual burials', and 'The medical body: the archaeological evidence for the use of the corpse in medical research and teaching'. The authors describe the information presented in these chapters as "broad and general" (p. 156), but they are being modest because these chapters provide thorough explanations of the entire post-medieval interment process, extending from dressing the dead to the landscapes of burial. Along the way, the authors present intriguing information about coffin construction, handle design, the use of coffin plates, and the sorts of objects typically deposited with the deceased during the post-medieval era. The chapters dealing with unusual burials and the use of the dead by medical practitioners are added bonuses.

Religion necessarily plays a major role in burial, and the authors address these issues cogently. They discuss such topics as the burial of Catholics after the Reformation, the interment of the excommunicated and the resting places of the unbaptised. They note the difference between Britain and Ireland by discussing cillin, separate burial grounds in Ireland for the unbaptised. Irish archaeologists have only recently begun to assess the significance of these intermediate spaces--in the past and today--so the authors' inclusion here demonstrates the depth of their research. Their discussion of the Christian burials accorded to many criminals, despite their sins, is enlightening. (Murderers, however, were often given less auspicious burials in simple pits located near gallows.)

Equally valuable is the chapter on the use of the dead for medical research. This is an especially important topic because it provides concrete information about the development of the medical profession and the increasing need during the eighteenth century for corpses that could be dissected by medical students. Religion again plays a role here because of the many post-medieval discussions about the condition of the dissected in the afterlife. Could a person be admitted to heaven with the top of his or her head removed? The clergy came down on the side of the doctors, stating that a whole body was not required to benefit from the resurrection, but the general public disagreed. A cartoon published in 1782 (p. 135) comically shows the dissected looking for their missing body parts at the Windmill Street anatomy school. One man stands upright with no head saying 'Where's my head?' whilst two men argue about the ownership of a detached leg, and two skeletons--a man and a woman--happily greet one another.

Researchers will be especially gratified by the references, which date throughout the entire post-medieval era, beginning in the seventeenth century. Archaeologists looking for source materials will find this to be a valuable resource.

The references alone suggest the utility of this volume, but this conclusion is reinforced by Part 2: the 'post-medieval burial gazetteer'. This compendium contains over 500 locations where burials have been professionally excavated in Britain and Ireland. Anyone conducting research on post-medieval burial practices or excavating a cemetery will want to have this section handy when they seek comparative samples. Some readers may be surprised that the authors exclude above-ground information. This omission does not detract from the volume, however, because such information generally can be found elsewhere or can be easily obtained via non-invasive field research.

All in all, this is a useful and important volume that helps to demonstrate the significance of post-medieval archaeology to wider audiences. It may also help to rehabilitate the examination of archaeological mortuary analysis, an aspect of archaeology that has become somewhat less visible in recent years.

CHARLES E. ORSER, JR.

New York State Museum, USA

(Email: [email protected])