Cemeteries and such

We noted that the regional daily has responded with proper indignation to a recent incident of cemetery vandalism in Middletown, in Orange County.

Three youths, after an intoxicating evening out, apparently short-cutted through the cemetery on their way home and did considerable damage to monuments and graves in a graveyard where many of the city’s most notable cadavers expected to reside in eternal peace.

There is, of course, no excuse for this kind of wanton destruction. Regrettably though, it’s the kind of vandalism that mindless adolescents and bigots of various persuasions have always done from time to time.

Then you’ve got the ghouls and cultist grave robbers, whose activities we sometimes read about shortly after Halloween.

The vandals’ goals in these attacks usually involve an attempt to snub adult institutions in the former case, or to make an outrageous political statement in the latter. The grave robbers have their own dark rationales and seemingly, most often would prefer to make no statement at all.

This type of thing, striking at family and religious traditions, has always been viewed as an especially low blow.

On the other hand, the Judeo-Christian culture has had no problem at all rooting about in remains of other cultures. But this is all in the name of science.

We’ve been digging around in ancient civilizations in places like Egypt, Iraq and Turkey for centuries. Our museums are full of the results.

When I was a kid, I pestered my way into a ride to Cuddebackville alongside the Neversink River, where an Indian burial site had been found. I can readily recall the general giddy atmosphere of the collection of amateur archaeologists and thrill seekers who had gathered there, busily burrowing away along the shore. I was even allowed to help and I remember spending some time digging the soil away from an exposed skull, which featured a large hole in the middle of its forehead.

This is not to say that all our modern, government- approved grave robbing is prurient or sloppy in nature. In recent years, I watched Pennsylvania state contracted archaeologists executing a painstaking, excruciatingly slow and careful excavation of an Indian campsite in Shohola. As memory serves, they spent two summers digging in a handful of holes and retrieved many artifacts which were slated for public display in area museums.

So, I guess the question that all this discussion begs is, when are graves old enough, or far enough removed that they are subject to excavation for scientific purposes? Or is it simply a matter of digging up other people’s graves, who weren’t like us, or known to be directly related to us.

If our empirical quest for knowledge requires us to unearth the remains of ancient African and Asians, are we so rich in knowledge of our early history that we can ignore the 400-year-old graves of the Pilgrims? Isn’t there information to be learned in nearly 500-year-old graves around St. Augustine, Florida? Wouldn’t you like to see if Washington was buried with his wooden teeth? Well, maybe not.

The thing is, the world’s ancient cultures seem to be fair game and I don’t recall anyone complaining about the digging in Cuddebackville. Aside from some anecdotal grumbling from some of the local Native Americans, I don’t recall anyone having a problem with the archaeological work in Shohola.

I love history, but I don’t believe anyone wants our searchers for knowledge digging up the Pilgrims or searching for Washington’s teeth.

From what we have learned of other cultures, from our burrowing, people who were buried in other cultures were in most cases interred with great care and respect, despite the means of the deceased or the level of the civilization. They were meant to stay where they were, in just the same way our dead are meant to stay where they are.

I would hope that those who unearth our civilization one day would have come to the same conclusion.

David Hulse, News Editor