Cremation and contemporary churchyards

Cremation and the Archaeology of Death, 2017

Modern cremation is often portrayed by archaeologists as a distracting antithesis of the open-air cremation practices encountered in the archaeological record from the prehistoric and early historic past. In some key ways, the process of burning cadavers within gas-fired ovens, followed by the grinding of bones to uniformly sized granules, offers a stark contrast to the varied multi-staged open-air cremation practices known from recent ethnographic studies, and from the increasingly rich data provided by the archaeological record. The cremation process is hidden, indoors and hence distanced from the survivors in modern cremation. However, there are also numerous connecting themes between modern and ancient cremation and this chapter hopes to shed light on how mortuary archaeologists can explore cremation today to better understand cremation's memorials, spaces and materials in both the distant and recent past, including both shared themes and distinctive dimensions in relation to other disposal methods, like inhumation. For while the burning of the body itself is hidden from view in modern cremation, the deployment of space, architecture, and memorialization before, during, and after the transformation of the body by fire choreographs comparable, if varied, emotive and mnemonic engagements between the living and the dead.

runs deeper than simply the points in the text where we cite selected authors' contributions appearing in this volume.

2017

The fiery transformation of the dead is replete in our popular culture and Western modernity's death ways, and yet it is increasingly evident how little this disposal method is understood by archaeologists and students of cognate disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. In this regard, the archaeological study of cremation has much to offer. Cremation is a fascinating and widespread theme and entry-point in the exploration of the variability of mortuary practices among past societies. Seeking to challenge simplistic narratives of cremation in the past and present, the studies in this volume seek to confront and explore the challenges of interpreting the variability of cremation by contending with complex networks of modern allusions and imaginings of cremations past and present and ongoing debates regarding how we identify and interpret cremation in the archaeological record. Using a series of original case studies, the book investigates the archaeological traces of cr...

Cremation and the Archaeology of Death, 2017

Building for the cremated dead, in J.I. Cerezo-Román, A. Wessman and H. Williams (eds) Cremation and the Archaeology of Death, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 177-98 INTRODUCTION Given its inherent nature as fiery transformation, the archaeological traces of past cremation practices are always partial and fragmentary. However, recent advances in archaeological excavation and osteological analyses, and novel theoretical investigations of cremation's variability, character, and context, have enriched and developed the archaeology of cremation in prehistoric and early historic societies (for a review,

Ash, bone, and memories are all that remains after cremation. Yet for so-cieties and communities, the act of cremation after death is highly symbolic, rich with complex meaning, touching on what it means to be human. In the process of transforming the dead, the family, the community, and society as a whole create and partake in cultural symbolism. Cremation is a key area of archaeological research, but its complexity has been underappreciated and undertheorized. Transformation by Fire offers a fresh assessment of archaeological research on this widespread social practice. Editors Ian Kuijt, Colin P. Quinn, and Gabriel Cooney's volume examines cremation by documenting the material signatures of cremation events and processes, as well as its transformative impact on social relations and concepts of the body. Indeed, examining why and how people chose to cremate their dead serves as an important means of understanding how people in the past dealt with death, the body, and the socia...

The Public Archaeology of Death , 2019

Focusing on artist's impressions of early Anglo-Saxon cremations, we reflect on the potentials and challenges of collaborations between artists and archaeologists to both convey the fiery transformation of the dead in the human past, and provide reflection on our society's own engagement with mortality in which cremation has become a commonplace dimension. We show the potential of art to challenge preconceived notions and understandings of cremation past and present, positioning art as a key dimension of public mortuary archaeology.

in A. M. Jones, J. Pollard, M. J. Allen and J. Gardiner (eds) Image, Memory and Monumentality: Archaeological Engagements with the Material World, Oxford: Oxbow, pp. 207-217, 2012

World Archaeology, 2008

This paper explores the transformative power of fire, its fundamental ability to change material worlds and affect our experience of its materiality. The paper examines material transformations related to death as a means of illustrating the powerful property of fire as a materially destructive yet socially generative and creative element. While fire has been widely discussed archaeologically as a technological element, and recently coupled with the social and symbolic powers of pyrotechnology, we focus on the sensuous staging of fire in disposal practices. The paper employs two case studies focusing on cremation burial from Bronze Age (c.1300–1100 bc) and modern Denmark in order to demonstrate widely different sensuous engagements with fire and its experiential significance in a cremation context.

Rebay-Salisbury, K. 2015. "Neither fish nor fowl: burial practices between inhumation and cremation," in Z.L. Devlin and E.-J. Graham (eds) Death Embodied: Archaeological Approaches to the Treatment of the Corpse. Oxford: Oxbow: 18-40., 2015