Death and Commemoration: An Article Abstract

Finally, Tarlow notes that the history and nature of social beliefs and values can be studied by consideration of the methods of burial or symbols and carving on stones. The importance of the corporeal body varies across history, and this can be traced in the stones. What is the relationship between the living and the dead, and how is that expressed? The importance of the individual as a mourned subject is a fairly recent phenomenon; the shift from studying 'the dead' as a group and 'the loved one lost' as an individual can be traced using data from graveyards.