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Admin moved page How Did Cremation Emerge as a Death Ritual? to How Did Cremation Emerge as a Death Ritual
Cremation was at times practiced 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>
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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>
====Cremation Today====
[[File:1024px-2006 US cremation rates map.svg.png|thumbnail|left|350px|Figure 2. Cremation in the United States 2006.]]
By the 17th century, doctors and some others influenced by emerging science began to call for the use of cremation as a means to dispose of the dead in a sanitary way in Western coutnries. It became increasingly evident that disease could be prevented from spreading by cremation. By 1870s, both in Florence and the UK, the idea of cremation began to be advocated even more greatly by physicians in Western Europe. Sir Henry Thomson, who was a physician to Queen Victoria, was the first prominent official in the UK to advocate cremation. During the Victorian period, the population was growing rapidly. New cemeteries, such as Woking Cemetery, were created for the now far greater number of bodies as high population also meant high death rates. For physicians, they increasingly became concerned that cemeteries could not keep up with demand and that bodies not properly buried would spread disease.
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