Introduction to the special issue on necrogeography and physical geography

I Introduction

Physical geographers in geomorphology, weathering, and landscape studies have traditionally investigated landscape change that occurs through cross-temporal degradation and deterioration. Erosion, for example, is typically subtractive (or negative) in the removal of material from one place to another, but that material accumulates and amasses to form sedimentary sequences elsewhere, so can be additive and represent positive-relief landforms (e.g. Gamache et al., 2018). Degradation appears over the span of decades to millennia and more with exposure and (chemical) weathering processes. Deterioration, effectively decay, is erosional with the removal of materials and involves (physical) weathering over this timespan. The decay of landforms and entire landscapes is a tenable part of ‘necrogeography’ that involves burial and not just burial practice, such that physical geographers should be involved in this subfield that is commonly part of human geography rather than geomorphology or human geomorphology. Thornbush (2012) presented the idea of ‘human geomorphology’ in a special issue that appeared in the journal Applied Geography. She argued that cultural remains contained within natural depositions could be construed from such a subdisciplinary approach within geomorphology, which tends to be based on physical landscapes and in the domain of physical geomorphology. Archaeogeomorphology, however, embraces the cultural domain by portraying the human and cultural element of landscapes. Concepts as ‘cultural stone’ (Pope et al., 2002) have already alerted geomorphologists to the incipience of human remains in natural contexts. Similarly, the current development of the notion of ‘the Anthropocene’ and human impacts modifying natural landscapes as well as natural hazards, whereby landscapes impound human settlements, are all relevant to consider as part of a necrogeography that is physical as well as traditionally human. Such an ‘anthropogenic geomorphology’ (Brown et al., 2017), or anthropogeomorpholgoy, would constitute necrogeography as involving both burial practice as well as burial itself and the taphonomic processes (burial, decay, and preservation) involved in landscape change (cf. Thornbush, 2001).

Muzaini (2017) most recently defined necrogeography as ‘the study of deathscapes, [that] is the inquiry into spaces associated with death, dying, and the dead’ from a cultural geography perspective that is essentially part of human geography. Keywords provided by this author, in addition to deathscapes, included burial, cemetery, corpses, cremation, dying, and memoryscapes. This definition of necrogeography remains firmly embedded in human geography and this could be altered by physical geographers through the introduction of research into taphonomic processes involved in deposition and erosion, rock decay, and relevant preservation studies – that will subsequently be considered in more detail. According to Zelinsky (1994), the original manifesto written by Kniffen (1967) was not well-received among American geographers, including cultural geographers (Francaviglia, 1971), with contributions being limited in scope to landscape terms as well as gravestone morphology evolution and land use at subregional scales. The author (Kniffen, 1967), identified possible problems impeding the development of geographical research in cemeteries and into burial practices among geographers, such as concerning field-based data, archival study, and interviewing, which can be costly in both travel costs and timewise, limiting researchers spatially, as within a single state. He suggested the use of large-scale topographic maps, as available from the US Geological Survey, and listed some potential cemetery-related variables of interest, including: size, shape, and orientation in addition to topographic attributes associated with church location, roads, settlements, etc., among them attributes of potential interest in cartographic (mapmaking) applications required by comprehensive studies: founding date/ age, whether in/active or abandoned, number of plots/burials, layout, ethnic, racial and religious denomination, social and spatial segregation, landscaping, fencing, maintenance quality, proprietorship, and so on. However, Kniffen (1967: 30–31) noted that ‘it goes without saying that documenting tomb and gravestone styles and the language and artwork inscribed on the memorializing objects is something far beyond any cartographer’s charge’. In this way, the author effectively limited the work done by cross-disciplinary geographers working as part of multidisciplinary teams, capable of investigating stylistic change and in more than cemeteries, also burial grounds and churchyards (e.g. Thornbush and Thornbush, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018a). This also limits the potential for physical geographers, who are not necessarily cartographers or cultural geographers (e.g. Lisek and Nieścioruk. 2015), but who may be interested in examining weathering and erosion, topography, site formation processes and taphonomy, cross-temporal landscape change, and so on at these sites.

From the standpoint of ‘cultural landscapes’, there is much potential for necrogeographical studies; this has been observed, as for instance by Orr (2015), concerning settlement patterns and the topography of Appalachian cemeteries and churchyards. The cultural landscape of cemeteries and settlement patterns were previously addressed by Francaviglia (1971); see also Thornbush and Thornbush (2017), for example, regarding churchyard topographic effects on the wick effect affecting headstones. So, for the physical geographer, necrogeography has the potential to encompass more than just traditionally rural cemetery studies. Afterall, fieldwork in remote and rural settings (and more recently in urban environments as part of urban geomorphology, e.g. Thornbush and Allen, 2018) has normally figured into the work of physical geographers, studying landscapes as part of the ‘natural’ or physical environment, so it makes sense that it should be in their repertoire of study. After 20 years, Francaviglia (1994) published a review tracking the contributions of geographers to necrogeography. He found localised efforts, confined to one (individual) or a few cemeteries or at the local (e.g. city to county) scale, addressing either a public, religious/denominational, or cultural/ethnic cemeteries selected for research, and maintained that necrogeography should attain a regional focus, conforming to: ‘broad regional patterns of material culture’ (Francaviglia, 1994: 521). Thornbush and Thornbush (2018) and others, e.g. Stott (2008) for states, including Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Montana, and Wyoming, in the American Great Plains, for instance, provided regional scale comparisons of English versus Scottish churchyards across a north–south national-cutting transect, indicating that cross-boundary studies are being undertaken in contemporary necrogeographical research. Reiffenstein and Selig (2013) considered information derived from field surveys, etc. in their study of Prince Edward Island’s cemetery landscape morphogenesis, finding that harder and more durable stones were deployed over time and a shift away from local to off-island production in the other Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia as well as Vermont. Moreover, Francaviglia (1994: 521) recognised the interdisciplinary nature of necrogeography, as it draws anthropologists, historians, scholars in interdisciplinary programs, etc. and contended that:

In a manner of speaking, then, necrogeography is alive and well, but largely outside of the ‘geographic’ literature and geographical forums. One needs to explore a wide range of scholarship to find it. The methodology and findings of geographers have been useful to scholars in other fields – such as landscape architecture, historic preservation, and folklore – as they interpret cemeteries. We should not be surprised that those who are making the most active contributions in necrogeography are from fields in which objects in and of themselves have intrinsic intellectual value, that is, for what they can reveal about the process of cultural development as well as diffusion. That geographers could make a stronger impact in these areas, however, is evidenced by the constant calls from historical agencies seeking those who can place objects and designs ‘in context’.

What is missing, then, is an understanding of the physical context of these sites that physical geographers can bring to necrogeography, which is more than elucidating spatial patterns and cemetery design; however, where it comes to physical processes and landforms, here is the domain and potential contribution of physical geographers to the environmental notion of place (Table 1). Such studies are currently limited and further engagement is required (and encouraged) for their expansion and development. What is more, finally, it needs to be recognised that necrogeography can encompass more than ‘cemetery studies’, including physical as well as cultural landscapes (cf. Price, 1966).

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Table 1.

Some examples of the potential contribution of physical geographers to necrogeography.

Subdisciplinary inputs	Publications
Scientific interest by geomorphologists in stone weathering, examining the condition and deterioration of dated tombstones	Classic work by Geikie (1880a), Julian (1883), Egleston (1886)
Climatological possibility regarding seasonal differences in mortality, reflecting such factors as climatic stress, seasonal major pestilences, seasonal demands of agricultural clearing and harvesting	Osborne (1974)
Reconstruction of past climate, e.g. rainfall, based on the use of gravehouses as protective structures	Sexton (1991), Frantom (1995)
Soil scientist required to use ground-penetrating radar/ GPR and magnetic induction imaging	Branting (2007)
Biogeographical studies of trees to test for (arsenic leachate) contamination of sites	Branting (2009)
Footpath erosion due to tourism to sacred structures (landforms) and sites (landscapes) located in rural areas	Havlíček and Hupková (2013)
Geological perspective to focus on stratigraphy and address morphology of Nazi death camps	Domanska (2014)
‘Green culture’ in cemeteries, including garden-type memorial parks, as biogeography applied to such environments as well as potentially urban settings	Fan et al. (2014)

II The special issue

The special issue on necrogeography and physical geography advocates for the development of necrogeography as part of physical landform and landscape processes, so as ‘necrogeomorphology’ illustrated by the following contributions:

Nash (2018) addresses traditional necrogeography based on burial practices in cemeteries, impacting gravestones and memorials. The author presents a review paper of necrogeography from the framework of deathscapes based on the commemoration of death and its portrayal of cultural change; and, physically, where places of burial appear in the urban periphery as sites of potential contagion and contribute to air pollution as mercury vapours are released from crematoria.

This special issue, then, contributes to an expansion of necrogeography and physical geography, as for instance is evident by adopting the term ‘necrogeomorphology’ to capture landscape death (as in the title by Dorn, 2018) and landform decay (Migoń et al., 2018), through such landscape studies (in deserts, but also mountains and islands) as well as environmental research that entails more traditional cemetery rock weathering/stone decay work, but also applications within mined landscapes.