Changes

Up until the Roman period, cremation was common in Europe, including southern Europe. With the rise of Christianity, cremation began to die out as a practice throughout Europeas Christianity spread. In fact, Christians began to associate cremation as a pagan act, sometimes even seeing it as a type of fire sacrifice to the ancient gods rather than as a burial practice. Judaism had a strong prohibition regarding cremation and this likely influenced Christianity's prohibition that the church adopted. This is also true for Zoroastrians, which originated with Iranian cultures. In their case, bodies were left for birds to eat. Cremation, for Zoroastrians, was seen as corrupting the sacred fire. For Christians, cremation was seen as desecrating the body during the day of resurrection. With the influence of Christianity, cremation largely disappeared after the 1st millennium CE in Europe. Islam also had derived from Semitic origins, which meant it had also prohibited cremation since it was seen as desecrating the body.<ref>For more on the prohibition on cremation in monotheistic faiths, see: Beard, M., North, J.A. & Price, S.R.F. (1998) <i>Religions of Rome.</i> Cambridge ; New York, Cambridge University Press, pg. 18.</ref>

Cremation was at times practices in Europe, but usually it was done as a form of punishment. For instance, during the Protestant Reformation period in the 16th century and later, Protestants were sometimes burned or their bodies were ritually burned as a way to prevent them from entering the afterlife. This, in a way, was similar to being burned at the stake, where this punishment was intended to prevent an afterlife as well as act as punishment.<ref>For more on some acts of cremation in Christianity, see: Eric Venbrux, Thomas Quartier, Claudia Venhorst, Brenda Mathijssen, et al. (eds.) (2013) <i>Changing European death ways.</i> Death studies volume 1. Zürich, Lit, pg. 122.</ref>

On the other hand, cremation spread in east Asia as Buddhism influenced Han Chinese and Japan. Thus, while cremation began to disappear from Europe and the Middle East, it now spread in East Asia to areas where it was previously prohibited, such as in China (Figure 2).<ref>For more on the spread of cremation in East Asia, see: Michael Dickhardt (ed.) (2016) <i>Religion, place, and modernity: spatial articulations in Southeast Asia and East Asia.</i> Social sciences in Asia VOLUME 40. Leiden, Brill.</ref>