Response Paper 1

Material Culture and Ethnic Experience in Albion: Riverside Cemetery

The objective of this paper is to discuss what you learned about the experience of African American and Russian Orthodox people in Albion based upon your observations of graves
and grave markers at Riverside Cemetery. Your paper should include the following:

1. A testable hypothesis about how African Americans and Russian Orthodox people in Albion experienced ethnicity. Given what you know about the different kinds of ethnicity, the ways that different ethnic groups have been treated in the United States, and the history of these specific groups, what differences do you expect existed between African Americans and the Russian Orthodox? How might these differences be reflected in one or more attributes of graves and grave markers in the cemetery?

(n.b. A testable hypothesis implies that your ideas can be assessed using one or more attributes of graves and grave markers in the cemetery. You must decide on your hypothesis before you go to the cemetery, since your hypothesis will decide the
information you will collect about each grave).

2. An assessment of your hypothesis using the information you collected at Riverside Cemetery. How many African American and Russian Orthodox graves showed the attributes you expected to find? How many did not show the expected attributes?

Based on your observations, do you accept or reject your original hypothesis? Do your observations lead you to a new and different understanding of how African American and Russian Orthodox people experience ethnicity? Are your findings inconclusive? If so, why?

3. A plan for future research. In light of your findings, what additional research would you suggest? What new studies would enable you to provide another test of your hypothesis or to assess a newly formulated hypothesis?

4. An assessment of the archaeology of ethnicity. Having completed this study, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the possibilities of an archaeology of ethnicity? Why?