Moorhead burial traditions topic of Castine talk

CASTINE – Christopher Cox will present a talk, “The Wentworth Cemetery of Oakland, Maine, and its Context within the Moorehead Burial Tradition,” at 7 p.m. Monday, May 8, at Emerson Hall.

A native of Springfield, Vt., Cox is majoring in anthropology with a minor in earth sciences at the University of Maine. He has been elected a member of Phi Sigma Pi, National Honor Fraternity and Lambda Alpha, National Collegiate Honors Society for anthropology. Cox is an annual recipient of the UM Dean’s Scholar Award.

The Moorehead burial tradition is an elaborate Archaic period mortuary phenomenon of the Gulf of Maine region currently occupied by groups of the Wabanaki confederation. The most prominent characteristic of the tradition is that a significant number of cemetery sites occur on the landscape in a highly structured way.

The Wentworth cemetery located at the outlet of Messalonskee Lake is one of the largest known Moorehead burial tradition sites. Warren K. Moorehead excavated the site in 1920.

Many of the artifacts collected by Moorehead at the location are housed at the Wilson Museum in Castine. Cox’ study helps to integrate the Wentworth site into an increasingly complex understanding of the Moorehead burial tradition.