DONT OPEN- DEAD INSIDE

Good evening, 397!

As a long time reader of the Walking Dead graphic novels, I knew I'd need to write about them eventually. For personal context... When I met my partner, I also accepted the fact that I would have to face my fear of zombies. I started out slow by watching Day of the Dead and 28 Days Later, which contrary to intuition, were easier to watch due to their dedication to gore. I started reading comics a couple of years later, and over the last few years, I've kept up with the Walking Dead graphic novels. 

Why did I get hooked? Why does everyone get hooked? I believe it is the intense personal connections built by the authors between the reader and the characters. Sure, the novels (and now TV show) are chalk full of brutal gore scenes, but the point of the story is to understand and witness the disintegrating social factor. How would we survive in a zombie apocalypse? And if we did survive.. Would our hearts and souls? Our mental states? Would some of us revel in the idea of our loved ones walking once more? Would any of our culture survive?

In the image to the right, Jim, a short-lived character in the graphic novels, is bitten, and as his health deteriorates, asks to be left to die on his own. He wonders if he will be reunited with his family, who also walk the streets as the undead.

What does this perspective regarding death do to society as we live? I can't help but wonder if it is simply another grasp at cheating death; simply another way to carry on, regardless of the state. Is this the modern-day variation of having a tormented means of carrying on? Is it any different from the Egyptian's belief of reawakening? It is interesting to consider the effects that such cultural crazes have on the interpretations of archaeological sites.

Something I found very interesting in The Walking Dead graphic novels was the fact that the surviving groups still chose to bury their dead, given the dire situation all of humanity found themselves in. Despite the necessity of either decapitation or brain puncturing to ensure the loved one would remain dead, many deceased group members still received a proper, albeit improvised, burial. I specifically wanted to talk about this point, because I remembered a class discussion regarding the phenomenon of burial tradition changes linked with mass death and tragedy.

What would these post-apocolyptic, zombie-land burials look like, years down the road, in an archaeological context? Here are some characteristics I believe would be similar between most burials of that time:

- Decapitation or severe wound to the brain

- Skeletal evidence of severe stress (malnutrition,     improperly healed breaks and fractures)

- Irregularly shaped graves (great variation in depth/shape)

- Most likely not located in distinguished "cemeteries"

- Lack of similarity between graves in orientation

- Possibility of simple grave goods such as personal items (jewelry, memorabilia, etc.) 

It is interesting to try to view such a scene from the future, and attempt to explain these peculiar occurrences. For example, some cemeteries belonging to the Kitoi people in the Cis-Baikal region of Siberia have revealed a high rate of intentionally decapitated remains, with the majority of the heads unaccounted for. I realize this is a huge stretch, but is it a possibility that the Kitoi people believed it  necessary to remove the head after death to avoid "reanimation"? Would this be a logical inference for archaeologists to make, were they to find the makeshift cemeteries of the survivors of The Walking Dead?

.......Let's hope we never find out.

Cultural phenomenon like The Walking Dead series provide contemporary society with a means to deal with issues surrounding death. Perhaps it is the fact that most of us (at least those of us reading this), here sitting cozily in the developed western world, are out of touch with true tragedy, horror, and loss, so we create it in a manageable context to allow ourselves to feel these issues, or even to judge our reactions. In class, we spoke of how the living bury the dead, and often it is their interpretation of that person's life that is reflected in the burial. This concept of planning "what I would want" in the event of death is ever-present in The Walking Dead, especially regarding the haunting spectre of inevitable reanimation. All of these themes common to the gravesite archaeologist are now presented in The Walking Dead. What is the purpose? Surely, it isn't just about the gore and the drama. The real strength of the graphic novels comes from the personal connection you build with each person struggling page after page, bearing their heart and everything they are to the reader. They are made human, and in that creation, so is their fear of death made real, and so are their attempts at holding onto a shred of human culture in the form of proper burial. As seen in today's post-disaster cultures, honouring the dead in a way that is the closest to "normal" (achievable for that time), may be what holds a struggling people together in the wake of tragedy.

So what can we learn from The Walking Dead phenomenon and its glimmer into the human condition? We will always carry on, and find a way to continue to do what makes us, us, regardless of the situation and resulting hardship.