The Use of Ethnographic Information in Cremation Studies: A Southeast Asian Example

Traditionally, procedures used to cremate human remains are determined using analysis of bone colouration and heat-fracturing. Unfortunately, such analyses may provide ambiguous results. We argue that ethnoarchaeological techniques such as the use of written ethnographic and historic accounts can be a valuable aid to the interpretation of bioarchaeologically derived evidence of cremation practices, and we provide a case study to demonstrate this point. Bone colour and heat fracturing analyses were performed on 23 cremated individuals from the Lan Xang period of Lao history to clarify cremation practices used in this period. Comparison of the results from these analyses with ethnographic and historic accounts of Southeast Asian cremation practices proved to be useful, as these accounts narrowed down potential interpretations of the data and showed that cremation procedures in the Lan Xang period were likely to be similar to modern practices. Referring to this case study, we evaluate whether the use of ethnographic techniques in bioarchaeology should be classed as ethnoarchaeology. It is argued that the present study is not strictly ethnoarchaeology as it was research question based, rather than hypothesis based. However, futures studies may be designed in such a way that they are both bioarchaeology and ethnoarchaeology, as ethnoarchaeological techniques can be of assistance.