The results from a ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey of Cromwell Cemetery have revealed the potential sites of unmarked graves.
The survey conducted by Southern Geophysical in May for the Otago Goldfields Heritage Trust used the radar to scan and mark out potential sites to protect them from future repair works to the cemetery and to ensure they got the respect they deserved.
Southern Geophysical geophysicist Jack Fleming said the survey did not say with certainty if there were unmarked burials, but was based on GPR signature sites of potential interest for archaeologists.
Four sites were marked as likely to be an unmarked burial and 27 were marked as possible unmarked burials.
"We'll locate what we believe is relevant, and an archaeologist will also look at it and determine what they think is relevant, and hopefully by the end of everybody getting their data sets together, we can come up with a comprehensive story."
Archaeologist Sarah Dugdale is helping to piece together the puzzle of what lies underneath the sites of interest.
Ms Dugdale is in the process of writing a report to summarise what they found with the GPR and what it is likely to indicate.
The report would be presented to the community, who would discuss further action, she said.
In the GPR survey report, likely burial sites and possible burial sites were detected with the suggestion both were treated as if they were graves.
"If there's a graveyard and we know that there were quite a few people buried in that part of the cemetery, ... a lot of them would have been unrecorded and pauper," Ms Dugdale said.
The difference between likely burial sites and possible burial sites could be put down to the fact the possible burial sites were atypical.
"Potentially they're a little bit smaller or a little bit not as deep," she said.
Friends of Cromwell Cemetery member Katie Seymour said the GPR survey meant the group could now protect and give the burial sites the respect they deserved.
With the new discovery it was hoped a fence could be installed around the burials to protect them from being driven over as well as a monument commemorating the miners and paupers buried in the unmarked sites.
