Session Organiser: Duncan Robertson
(University of Sheffield)

The study of cremation burials in archaeology has, in many respects, performed a supporting role to the more tangible record of inhumation burials. Cremation cemetery reports have concentrated largely on describing pottery typologies, grave and pyre goods, consequently producing very few meaningful interpretations of the important funeral rites and transformations associated with the disposal of the body. This need no longer be the case as recently the examination of the most fundamental aspect of the cremation, i.e. the human remains, has improved, resulting in the addition of an extra dimension to the study of this burial practice. Comment is now possible on a range of issues beyond demographic considerations, involving technology and the results of ritual actions. Significantly, this advance has enabled the potential for multidisciplinary interpretations of the material, combining osteology, anthropology, landscape and historical studies, to be more widely explored. It is the purpose of this session to illustrate, through a wide range of contributions, the diversity of approaches applicable to the interpretation of this complex form of burial archaeology. These will include Prehistoric, Roman, and Saxon studies to highlight the contribution that this form of burial archaeology, a form often ignored by archaeologists, yet so widely used through time and space, has to offer. Gaps in the archaeological burial record often coincide with periods of cremation, this session aims to demonstrate that this need no longer be the case.
 

From Spong Mincer to Cremulator - What use is a Heap of Ashes?

In 1746 Tom Martin dismissed the Anglo-Saxon urns excavated from Spong Hill in Norfolk as containing "nothing but bones and gravel"- an oft repeated sentiment throughout the following centuries of awakening interest in archaeology with frustrating consequences for the osteologist. Following Lt-Col Hawley's 1920s excavations, all but one of the 52 cremation burials from the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge were reburied without examination of the bone. Such discarding of cremated remains from excavation in the firm belief that nothing could be gained from their analysis was a common practice through to the 1950s. Even if kept, the bone was frequently not subject to examination- an on-going, if thankfully rare, occurrence even now.

Thanks to the activities of contributors (Wells and Spence) in Britain in the 1960s archaeologists became less dismissive. The full potential of such analyses, however, was and is not always appreciated. Cremated bone is the product of a deliberate act surrounded by rites and rituals- analysis may illustrate not only information pertaining to the individual but to the technology, rites and rituals of cremation. The assumption that 'cremation' is synonymous with 'cremation burial' and the emphasis on just this one type of cremation-related feature means that a large proportion of the rites and rituals of cremation are being overlooked. The imbalance needs to be redressed...

Death, Cremation and Sex

Traditional archaeological thought has attempted to interpret the phenomenon of visible collective burial areas of the middle Bronze Age in terms of ancestor cults, or the legitimation of claims to territory. However, it can be argued that an often ignored factor in the interpretation of these funerary rituals is embodied in fertility, the act of reproduction, which is manifest in the bones and the location of the burial areas within the developing agricultural landscape.

Recent osteological examination of cremated skeletal remains recovered from the cairnfield at Stanton Moor (Derbyshire Peak district), earlier this century revealed the different treatment of males and females on the pyre prior to burning, collection and deposition. Examination of ethnographic parallels suggests that death and the regeneration of life is a recurrent theme in particular cremating societies. The spheres of life and death are inextricably linked, particularly for this period of prehistory. It will be argued that the cremation of human remains represents a form of sacrifice which produces a physical metaphor for a purified essence of fertility, the deposition of which ensures the continuing success of the emergent subsistence base.

The Work of Cremation

As anthropological accounts of cremation can be said to have focused unduly on the burning of the body, so archaeological investigations of the rite have almost exclusively been concerned with the burial- a residue of what is increasingly recognised as a complex series of events of which the burning of the body and the disposal of the remains are only a small part. Certain of these events are recoverable archaeologically, but only if the scope of investigation is extended beyond the burial.

Analysis of material from a middle Bronze Age barrow cemetery in Orkney has provided detailed evidence of a great variety of cremation rites and funerary architecture. The forms of analysis undertaken at this site allow an appreciation of the cemetery as a place of ritual labour, where the activities undertaken evoke the scarred landscape of work rather than the sacred landscape of grassy knolls.

The Significance of Cremations in the Prehistory of Central Europe
 

Social differentiation or different ethnic identity may be one explanation for the choice of cremation/inhumation methods in some periods of Later Prehistory.

I believe that neither of these interpretations can be applied to the Eneolithic period. Exceptional evidence of a communal cremation burial of the Late Eneolithic Corded Ware was recently recovered in Central Bohemia. A deposit of at least four cremated human bodies was accompanied by another three inhumations (buried in male position - orientated with their heads to the west). Within the area of the cremation deposit some spatial clustering was indicated suggesting a deliberate bias towards the collection and burial of cranial bones (female position - orientated to the east). This aspect is very interesting in the context of funerary practices used within Corded Ware cemeteries (which exclusively consist of inhumations), where great attention was paid to the symbolic expression of the male and female phenomena. Even using this different method of burial, the essential symbolic rule of the Corded Ware burial rite was respected.

In this paper I will argue that cremation as a method of disposing of the dead is similar in form in all periods; However its social symbolic meaning may vary in different prehistoric periods.

Aspects of Roman Cremations

The normative view of Roman burial practices in Britain is that cremation was the main form of burial until the 3rd century, when inhumation became the dominant rite. However, in paces cremations are found into the late 4th century and even beyond. Such late cremations are usually explained in one of two ways. They are either interpreted in ethnic terms as representing the burials of people of German origin. Alternatively cremation is seen as an archaic rite practised by people in an isolated location, cut of from contemporary burial fashions. I hope to explore the phenomenon of late Roman cremation by viewing burial practice not as a passive reflection of religious belief or fashion, but as an active aspect of material culture, which was deployed in specific situations for social and symbolic reasons. This will be done by looking at the practice of cremation in two areas of Roman Britain: Hadrians Wall and Wessex

From Death to Deposition: Cremation and the construction of identity in mortuary practices of the Early Roman north-western provinces

The act of cremation is often considered to reduce the information available to us for the mortuary rituals of the past, especially the data that can be obtained from human remains. However, in the cremated bone and in the hitherto neglected pyre sites and deposits of burnt debris, cremation also preserves evidence for the rites which precede, accompany and follow the deposition of the cremated bone and grave goods. This paper offers a method of interpretation of burial practice which utilises this fuller range of source material. Consideration of this broader body of evidence allows us to reconstruct past behaviour with a greater degree of detail. During the course of funerary ritual the identity of the dead can be argued not to be static but to represent a changing construct through manipulation by the living. The evidence from cremation cemeteries allows us to explore this structure of mortuary ritual. Although the examples will be drawn from early Roman Britain and neighbouring parts of Europe, the approach is still applicable to other cremating periods.

"Burnt Germans in the Age of Iron"? Cremation Practices in Context

For J.M. Kemble, writing in 1855, early Anglo-Saxon cremation practices represented pagans of Germanic origin; "The Burnt Germans of the age of Iron". Despite shifting theoretical perspectives, new excavations, archaeological and osteological studies, Kemble's interpretation remains influential. Even when cremation practices are not regarded in these simplistic terms they are studied in isolation from contemporary inhumation rites. Otherwise cremation and inhumation are treated as arbitrary variations within similar ritual sequences.

This paper questions these approaches by examining the relationships between inhumation and cremation rites at the inter-regional, regional and cemetery levels in southern and eastern England between the 5th and 7th centuries. With support from historical and anthropological sources, it is argued that the choice between the two rites involved divergent mortuary display, symbolism and treatment of the body. These symbolic distinctions served in the negotiation and reproduction of social identities within and between early medieval communities.

Comparisons between Inhumation and Cremation Burial Rites in Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries

The question as to why some individuals in the past were inhumed whilst others were cremated has been an issue of contention for a number of decades. When studying Anglo-Saxon cemeteries- where both rites occur frequently simultaneously- and comparing the inhumation and cremation burials a number of similarities and distinctions can be revealed. The latter are marked by the fact that cremation burials generally contain fewer grave or pyre goods compared to inhumations. There is also much greater distinction in objects relating to age and gender in inhumations than in cremation burials. However, it has been suggested that these characteristics might be expressed differently in cremations, possibly through the size and decoration of the urn. Further work comparing these two rites and considering ethnographic and documentary evidence might reveal the reasons for the choice of burial ritual.

Religious Aspects of Cremation Burials in Ancient Thrace

Numerous tumuli and flat graves with cremation burials of the 1st millennium BC have been excavated in the lands of the ancient Thracian tribes. Religious interpretation of this mortuary practice is very difficult as the Thracians were non-literate people and all the information on their religion is indirect, given by Greek and Roman authors. The evidence is scarce and very often - partial. It is possible to suppose however, that the cremation rites had been used to purify the deceased, which is a common Indo-European belief. Simultaneously, there are clear written sources which testify to the strong solar cult among the Thracian tribes, who had believed in the solar male deity and the chthonic Mother Goddess. Therefore, cremation rituals, when used in the aristocratic burials, possibly had been connected with deification of the dead nobles and their symbolic rebirth from the underworld, similar to the Sun god.