Editing Cremation (section)

===Ancient===
{{further|Secondary cremation}}

[[File:CrematedHumanRemains.JPG|thumb|right|[[Bronze]] container of ancient cremated human remains, complete with [[votive offering]]]]
Cremation dates from at least 17,000 years ago<ref>Gillespie, R (1997) Burnt and unburnt carbon: dating charcoal and burnt bone from the Willandra Lakes, Australia: Radiocarbon 39, 225-236.</ref><ref>Gillespie, R (1998) Alternative timescales: a critical review of Willandra Lakes dating. Archaeology in Oceania, 33, 169-182.</ref> in the archaeological record, with the [[Lake Mungo remains|Mungo Lady]], the remains of a partly cremated body found at [[Lake Mungo]], Australia.<ref>Bowler, J.M. 1971. Pleistocene salinities and climatic change: Evidence from lakes and lunettes in southeastern Australia. In: Mulvaney, D.J. and Golson, J. (eds), Aboriginal Man and Environment in Australia. Canberra: Australian National University Press, pp. 47–65.</ref>

Alternative death rituals which emphasize one method of disposal – [[burial]], cremation, or [[Sky burial|exposure]] – have gone through periods of preference throughout history.

In the Middle East and Europe, both burial and cremation are evident in the archaeological record in the [[Neolithic]] era. Cultural groups had their own preferences and prohibitions. The ancient Egyptians developed an intricate transmigration-of-soul theology, which prohibited cremation. This was also widely adopted by Semitic peoples. The Babylonians, according to [[Herodotus]], embalmed their dead. [[Phoenicia]]ns practiced both cremation and burial. From the [[Cycladic civilisation|Cycladic civilization]] in 3000 BCE until the Sub-[[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean]] era in 1200–1100 BCE, [[Ancient Greece|Greeks]] practiced burial. Cremation appeared around the 12th century BCE, probably influenced by [[Anatolia]]. Until the Christian era, when inhumation again became the only burial practice, both combustion and inhumation had been practiced, depending on the era and location.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ims.forth.gr/joint_projects/e-mem/burial_customs-gr.htm#archaic|title=IMS-FORTH: About IMS|website=Ims.forth.gr|access-date=3 October 2017|archive-date=18 March 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130318204155/http://www.ims.forth.gr/joint_projects/e-mem/burial_customs-gr.htm#archaic|url-status=dead}}</ref> In [[Ancient Rome|Rome's]] earliest history, both inhumation and cremation were in common use among all classes. Around the mid-Republic, inhumation was almost exclusively replaced by cremation, with some notable exceptions, and remained the most common funerary practice until the middle of the Empire, when it was almost entirely replaced by inhumation.

In Europe, there are traces of cremation dating to the Early [[Bronze Age]] (c. 2000 BCE) in the [[Pannonian Plain]] and along the middle [[Danube]]. The custom became dominant throughout Bronze Age Europe with the [[Urnfield culture]] (from c. 1300 BCE). In the [[Iron Age]], [[inhumation]] again becomes more common, but cremation persisted in the [[Villanovan culture]] and elsewhere. [[Homer]]'s account of [[Patroclus]]' burial describes cremation with subsequent burial in a [[tumulus]], similar to Urnfield burials, and qualifying as the earliest description of cremation rites. This may be an anachronism, as during Mycenaean times burial was generally preferred, and Homer may have been reflecting the more common use of cremation at the time the Iliad was written, centuries later.

[[File:The Funeral Rites of Auitzotl WDL6755.png|thumbnail|The [[Aztec]] emperor [[Ahuitzotl]] being cremated. Surrounding him are a necklace of jade and gold, an ornament of [[quetzal]] feathers, a ''copilli'' (crown), his name glyph, and three sacrificial vassals to accompany him in the afterlife.]]
Criticism of burial rites is a common aspersion by competing religions and cultures, including the association of cremation with [[fire sacrifice]] or [[human sacrifice]].

[[File:Hindu funeral.jpg|thumb|An 1820 painting showing a [[Antyesti|Hindu funeral]] procession in [[South India]]. The pyre is to the left, near a river, the lead mourner is walking in front, the dead body is wrapped in white and is being carried to the cremation pyre, relatives and friends follow.<ref>[https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3058333&partId=1 Museum record 2007,3005.2] The British Museum, London</ref>]]
[[Hinduism]] and [[Jainism]] are notable for not only allowing but prescribing cremation. Cremation in India is first attested in the [[Cemetery H culture]] (from c. 1900 BCE), considered the last phase of [[Indus Valley Civilisation]] and beginning of the [[Vedic civilization]]. The [[Rigveda]] contains a reference to the emerging practice, in [[Mandala 10|RV 10]].15.14, where the forefathers "both cremated (''agnidagdhá-'') and uncremated (''ánagnidagdha-'')" are invoked.

Cremation remained common but not universal, in both ancient Greece and ancient Rome. According to Cicero, burial was considered the more archaic rite in Rome.{{citation needed|date=January 2020}}

The rise of [[Christianity]] saw an end to cremation in Europe, though it may have already been in decline.<ref name="guardian-15">{{cite news|author-first1=Thomas|author-last1=Laqueur|title=The burning question – How cremation became our last act of self-determination |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/30/burning-question-how-cremation-became-last-great-act-self-determination-thomas-laqueur|newspaper=The Guardian|date=30 October 2015|access-date=4 January 2020}}</ref>

In early [[Roman Britain]], cremation was usual but diminished by the 4th century. It then reappeared in the 5th and 6th centuries during the migration era, when sacrificed animals were sometimes included on the pyre, and the dead were dressed in costume and with ornaments for the burning. That custom was also very widespread among the Germanic peoples of the northern continental lands from which the [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] migrants are supposed to have been derived, during the same period. These ashes were usually thereafter deposited in a vessel of clay or bronze in an "urn cemetery". The custom again died out with the Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons or Early English during the 7th century, when Christian burial became general.<ref>S.J. Plunkett, ''Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times'' (Tempus Publishing, Stroud 2005), 1–62.</ref>