Instructor: Dr. Andy Dyer has been a biology professor at USC Aiken since 2000. He has published two general science books: one on pesticide resistance and agriculture (Chasing the Red Queen, 2014) and the second on the microbiome (Eaters Digest, 2022). His interest in life-history patterns led him to study cemetery records and death certificate data to better understand patterns of death in Aiken County over the past 100 years. Description: The Pine Lawn Cemetery is a poorly understood historical jewel that was established in 1852. Years of cleaning, documenting, and restoring have uncovered very interesting information about its history. Pine Lawn is notable in that 1,200 headstones are known, but an estimated 5,000 unmarked graves are also there, including slave-era graves. This course will discuss cemetery history and related historical documents, and the trove of new information that has been discovered in the past few years.