Cremation practices from early medieval Ireland: burnt Christians and interpretative paradigms

Until very recently, the focus of studies of funerary practice in Ireland during later prehistory and the early medieval period has been elucidating the development of inhumation practices. There has been little dedicated work on the practice of cremation, and how it developed, while cremains have also tended not to be singled out for dating in post-excavation strategies. A growing body of evidence now indicates that cremation remained much more common than previously assumed, and this chapter explores some of the patterns evident in that emerging data. It reviews the role of cremation in a variety of contexts, and through a number of discrete social upheavals, including the conversion to Christianity.