Spatial and material aspects of culture: Ethnicity and ideology in Long Island gravestones, 1670-1820

Long Island, New York is geographically located between the Colonial cultural and political influences of New Netherlands and New England and includes the ideological influences of ten religious denominations and nine ethnic groups. This unique polyethnic area was settled by English, Flemish, Belgian, German, French, Scandinavians, Hollanders from various provinces, Turkish, and Africans, all of whom left mortuary material culture in the form of gravestones except the early Turks and Blacks.;About 4,500 stones have been photographed, computer coded for over 40 variables, and analyzed statistically for social and cultural information not previously available. Thus this form of material culture may be analyzed in relation to sources and carvers of the stones, ideology, ethnicity, material aspects of the stone, settlement hierarchy, social organization, geographical siting, and other variables. Descriptive statistics generated from this data base illustrate the pattern of choice and use through time and the attributes of gravestones imported from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York City.;This systems approach to a complex material culture object reveals a design motif seriation which differs from that postulated for New England, and suggests that the New Netherlands sphere, of which Long Island was part, evidences different material culture patterns and thus should be considered a culture hearth interfacing the New England and Mid-Atlantic culture hearths. Use of gravestones from the New England or New Netherlands spheres by Long Islanders appears to be related more to propinquity than other factors.;Patterns of use reflecting ethnic and ideological custom are the more extensive use of fieldstone markers and stones with no designs by the Quakers and the "Dutch", the minuscule use of "Skull" motifs by West End Dutch-sphere citizens, the East-facing headstone orientation of the Dutch, use of Dutch language, and evidence of lineage for most Dutch women on Dutch Reformed churchyard stones.