"It’s extremely rare to be able to investigate a cemetery purely for research," Dunedin archaeologist Peter Petchey said.
Ten years ago, Dr Petchey and The Southern Cemeteries Archaeological Project wanted to examine Otago goldfield cemeteries but met opposition, until they were contacted by a Milton-centred group determined to know what St John’s could tell them about their forerunners.
"Seven or eight graves were evident but there had to be a lot more," TP60 convener Robert Findlay said,
"People were poor, they used wooden markers ... It’s also in a flood-path ... Most of them were lost."
Founded in 1860 by European pioneers, the cemetery on Milton’s original main road fell into neglect and mystery after its last known burial in 1926 and by the time it was officially closed in 1971, cemetery trustees could only guess "about 200" people had been buried there.
Anglican leaders approved TP60’s request for the archaeological study, and the project began in 2015.
"We experimented with remote scanning then used a digger, scraping away about 5cm of earth at a time," Dr Petchey said.
"When we spotted graves we continued by hand ... caskets and clothing were very decomposed but the remains massively multiplied our knowledge."
Archaeology Professor Emeritus Hallie Buckley of the University of Otago led a team of about 15 to study the findings.
"These were real people exhumed ... Every technique and technology we have was used with respect to learn as much as we could about them," she said.
Analysis pinpointed individual places of origin, nutrition, disease, stress, trauma and injury and when cross-referenced with district records many of the dead were positively identified.
Life-and death stories of children and adults, a gold-miner and a grief-stricken doctor were revealed and detailed in research publications now shared by international archaeological and historical experts.
Saturday’s closing ceremony ended with the unveiling of a monument engraved with 79 early settler’s names, confirmed by the extensive project.
"These people were on a journey in life," Dunedin Bishop Kelvin Wright, who had sanctioned the project, said.
"They would rejoice in what the living have done for them here, and what their journey in death has done for us."
