The material culture of burial and its microgeography: A Luxembourg cemetery as a methodological example of an object-centred approach to quantitative material culture studies

This article uses a novel quantitative methodology to examine sepulchral material culture.
Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of social spatialization and art as agency, the authors
contend that variations in grave designs and materiality cannot simply be explained in terms
of changes in fashion and mentality. Other factors also need to be taken into account. Using
a digital data collection tool, the Cemetery Surveyor Application (CSA) developed at the
University of Luxembourg, they compile a set of data encompassing all the material aspects
of each grave in a cemetery in Luxembourg (Western Europe), the setting of their case
study. The graves are dated from the 1850s to 2015. |The authors compare the chronological
evolution of the most recurrent material features with a GIS-based spatial analysis of the same
features. The results of the spatial analysis not only largely confirm the chronological study,
but also allow them to be more precise (dating is often problematic) and include undated
graves (a third of the sample). The digital data collection tool also allows them to compare
cemeteries and to highlight variations in these that cannot merely be imputed to chronology,
but also to spatial proximity and material agency.