Spatial Seriation, Vectors of Change, and Multicentered Modeling of Cultural Transformations among San Diego’s Historical Gravestones

Abstract

Spatial seriations of San Diego County’s historical grave markers pinpoint three simultaneous centers of primary use and a consequent tripartite transmission of a cultural trait across space and time. Using battleship diagrams and vectors of change first made popular in historical archaeology 50 years ago by Deetz and Dethlefsen (1965), this article traces how local inhabitants communicated cultural ideas of death, mourning, and commemoration across Southern California, and how these beliefs changed over time and space. Monumentalism and the celebration of death, evinced in the extremely high frequencies of large stone tablets in the cities of San Diego, Oceanside, and Ramona in the late nineteenth century, spread over time to interior areas of the county, such as El Cajon, San Marcos, and Poway. Flat, flush markers then became the dominant type of gravestone during the early and mid-twentieth century, symbolizing and expressing an emotional, intellectual, and conceptual avoidance of death, mourning, and ...