Cremations in Archaeology 2026

 

#CiA2026

Dates: 22.-24. October 2026

Venue: Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria

The Cremations in Archaeology conference 2026 in Vienna will be jointly organized by the University of Vienna, the Natural History Museum in Vienna and the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Academy of Sciences and give participants the opportunity to experience a range of venues during their stay.

The format mirrors CiA 2022 in Belgium and CiA 2024 in Slovenia. An optional pre-conference excursion takes participants to the Traisen Valley and significant Late Bronze Age sites in Lower Austria. The excursion is followed by a wine reception in the Institute for Prehistory and Historical Archaeology’s archaeological collection on Wednesday.

The main venue of the conference will be the auditorium of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, with room for 140-190 participants, as well as space for posters and coffee breaks. The evening wine reception will take place in the Dinosaur Hall. On Thursday, a behind-the-scenes tour will take interested participants into the office and storage facilities of the prehistoric collections of the NHM.

On Friday, an optional visit to the Legal Medicine Department and its TCA and microscopy facilities will bridge the time between the talks and the conference dinner in the historic building of the Postsparkasse, Austrian Academy of Sciences. The key-note lecture will be held after the morning coffee break on Saturday. The conference will end in the afternoon.

 

Conference registration

50 € for students and unwaged, 100 € for waged participants includes coffee breaks, lunch, wine receptions and conference dinner. Please register via this link.

Please e-mail CiA2026Vienna@gmail.com if you have any questions or concerns.

 

Programme

Wednesday, 21. October 2026

09:00–17:00 Pre-conference excursion

17:00 Opening reception (Faculty Centre for Archaeology, Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology)

Thursday, 22. October 2026

09:00–09:15 Weiss-Krejci, Estella: Cremation in Ethnographic Sources: A Global Perspective

09:15–09:30 Erceg, Mila: Ritual Burning in Homer: Cremation and Sacrifice in Early Greek Myth

09:30–09:45 Evans, Christopher: Staged Rites – The Performance of Over's Early Bronze Age Cremations

09:45–10:00 Tiedtke, Verena: United in Ash

10:00–10:15 Desrue, Amélie & Vigot, Anne-Sophie: Cremation as a Contemporary Practice for Funerary Space Management: The Unprecedented Case of the Navarre Hospital Cemetery (Évreux, Eure, France)

10:15–10:30 Graham, Carrie & Louka, Vasiliki: The Legacy of Legacy: Considerations on Human Identification from Modern Cremations in the UK

10:30–11:00 Coffee break

11:00–11:15 Appleby, Jo et al.: Best Practice in the Excavation, Analysis and Curation of Cremated Human Remains: The CreMATE Network

11:15–11:30 Hulina, Mateja et al.: Developing Standardized Protocols for the Study of Cremated Human Remains in Archaeology

11:30–11:45 Becerra Fuello, Paula & Cerezo-Román, Jessica I.: On the Dead and Deadlines: Standards for Data Collection from Collective Cremated Human Skeletal Remains

11:45–12:00 Jaskulska, Elżbieta: Beyond Quantity: Preservation Profiles and Analytical Potential of Cremated Human Remains Assemblages

12:00–13:30 Lunch

13:30–13:45 Wolska, Bogumiła et al.: Same Bones, Different Answers? Compatibility and Reproducibility of Biological Sex Estimation in Burned Human Remains

13:45–14:00 Waltenberger, Lukas et al.: CRISP: Cremated Remains Inference of Sex Probabilities – A Software for Bayesian Sex Estimation in Human Cremated Remains

14:00–14:15 Bantavanou, Panagiota et al.: Unraveling Age-at-Death of Ancient Cremated Individuals Using Innovative Histological Techniques

14:15–14:30 Reisinger, Anna: Histological Estimation of Age at Death in Human Cremated Remains of Bronze Age Austria

14:30–14:45 Silva, Filipa C. & Grosskopf, Birgit: Age-at-Death Estimation in Roman Cremation Burials: A Histological Study from Astigi (Écija, Spain)

14:45–15:00 Hałuszko, Agata et al.: Exploring Tooth Cementum Annulation Counts in Cremated Human Remains Across Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Populations in SW Poland

15:00–15:30 Coffee break

15:30–15:45 Granier, Gaëlle et al.: The PyrOs Project: Improving Our Understanding of Ancient Cremations and the Identification of Non-Adult Burnt Bones Through Experimentation

15:45–16:00 Fritzl, Michaela et al.: Let It Burn! Experimental Insights into Late Bronze Age Cremation Practices and Pyre Dynamics

16:00–16:15 Grömer, Karina: Experimental Cremations with Focus on Textiles

16:15–16:30 Mittermair, Nicole et al.: Fifteen Shades of Green: Reassessing the Origin of Green Staining in Archaeological Cremation Burials

16:30–16:45 Rockall-Mills, Ainslie: Cremation in Context: Environmental Variability and Archaeological Interpretation

16:45–17:00 Orellana-González, Eliza et al.: Fire, Water, and Fluoride: Tracing Geogenic Pollution Through Cremated Remains in Roman Campania

17:00–17:30 Discussion

18:00 Wine Reception (Natural History Museum, Vienna)

Friday, 23. October 2026

09:00–09:15 Frère, Annemine et al.: Cremation Revisited: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Cremation

09:15–09:30 Stamataki, Elisavet et al.: Does Cremation Preserve Environmental Oxygen Isotope Signals? A Multi-Regional Study Across Europe

09:30–09:45 Budziszewski, Adam et al.: Surveying the Past for Isotopic Futures: Using Historical Cartography in Strontium Baseline Mapping

09:45–10:00 Gerritzen, Carina et al.: Contrasting Strontium Isotope Data with Archaeological Evidence in Urnfield Period Cremations of the Ruše Group (Slovenia)

10:00–10:15 Chiappa, Oriana et al.: What Lies Beneath the Lime: Identifying Calcite Contamination in Cremated Remains from Lime Burials

10:15–10:30 Salesse, Kévin et al.: Challenging Cremation Narratives in Pompeii: Insights from Isotope Geochemistry and FTIR Spectroscopy

10:30–11:00 Coffee break

11:00–11:15 Capuzzo, Giacomo: Timing the Onset of Cremation Funerary Practices in Early Mesolithic Europe: New Data from Abri des Autours (Belgium) and Franchthi Cave (Greece)

11:15–11:30 Beljak Pazinova, Noemi & Bistáková, Alena: Cremation at the Neolithic–Aeneolithic Transition: Evidence from the Lengyel and Polgár Cultural Region

11:30–11:45 Heilmann, Daniela et al.: Burning the Boundaries? Cremation Practices and Mobility in Late Neolithic Bavaria

11:45–12:00 Quinn, Colin P.: Making Death Mundane: Everyday Life and Cremation Practices in Middle Bronze Age Transylvania

12:00–13:30 Lunch

13:30–13:45 Arena, Alberta et al.: The Middle/Late Bronze Age Cremation Cemetery of Plaika, Lower Austria: Preliminary Results

13:45–14:00 Scarano, Teodoro: Torre Guaceto (Apulia, SE Italy): The Bronze Age Cremation Cemetery

14:00–14:15 Vasileva, Zheni & Vasileva, Elena: From Ashes to Insights: Reimagining Bronze Age Cremation Practices at Tarnyane, Northwest Bulgaria

14:15–14:30 Gavranović, Mario et al.: Copper Producers and Wealthy Females? A Case Study from East Serbia

14:30–14:45 Williamson, Kylie et al.: Commingling and Mobility: New and Future Insights from a Bronze Age Cemetery in Southeast Hungary

14:45–15:00 Stróżyk, Mateusz et al.: New Data from Bronze Age Cremations in Slovakia: Radiocarbon Evidence and Interpretative Challenges

15:00–15:30 Coffee break

15:30–15:45 Fülöp, Kristóf et al.: Uniform Monuments, Variable Practices: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Early Urnfield Tumuli and Pyre Sites in the Bakony Region (Western Hungary)

15:45–16:00 Šabatová, Klára et al.: More Than Dates: What Multi-Proxy Analysis of Cremation Burials Reveals About Late Bronze Age Society

16:00–16:15 Leonard, Hannah M. et al.: A Sign of the Times – Multi-Proxy Analysis of Cremated Remains to Reconstruct Bronze and Early Iron Age Population Dynamics in Belgium

16:15–16:30 Józefowska-Domańska, Anna et al.: Rise of DoHa Project: Bones, Mobility, Networks, and Hierarchies — New (Bio)Archaeological Perspectives on the Domasław Cemetery

16:30–16:45 Scalise, Lucia Martina et al.: Burned and Buried: A Close-Up Analysis of Cremation Rituals in Two Middle–Late Bronze Age Communities of the Terramare Culture (Northern Italy)

16:45–17:00 Črešnar, Matija et al.: All In on the Urn(s): Recent Interdisciplinary Experience from the Southeastern Alpine Region

17:00–17:30 Discussion

19:00 Conference Dinner (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Postsparkasse)

Saturday, 24. October 2026

09:00–09:15 Papazovska, Aleksandra: Recent Archaeological Perspectives and Absolute Dating of the Urn Burials at the Mali Dol Necropolis (Tremnik)

09:15–09:30 Kovačević, Saša: Echoes of Fire: Understanding Cremation Ritual and Social Structure in Early Iron Age Jalžabet

09:30–09:45 Potrebica, Hrvoje: From Pyre to Chamber: Containers and the Spatial Logic of Hallstatt Cremation Burials in the Požega Valley

09:45–10:00 Ložnjak Dizdar, Daria et al.: Researching Unusual Cremation Graves on the Example of Dolina (Continental Croatia)

10:00–10:15 Soós, Bence et al.: For Whom the Tumuli Were Built: Early Iron Age Burials Around Somló Hill

10:15–10:45 Coffee break

10:45–11:00 Chatzikonstantinou, Ioannis et al.: Fire, Continuity, and Identity: Cremation Practices in Early Iron Age Crete

11:00–11:15 Pegiou, Vasiliki et al.: The Practice of Cremation in Early Iron Age Chalcidice Peninsula, Northern Greece: The Case Study of Agios Ioannis-Nikitis

11:15–11:30 Papathanasiou, Vasso: Fire, Bodies, and Urns: Cremation Burials in Early Iron Age Polichni and Nea Philadelphia, Greece

11:30–12:00 Keynote: Marie Louise Sørensen (University of Cambridge):

12:00–13:30 Lunch

13:30–13:45 Rosselli, Lisa et al.: Cremation in Orientalizing Etruria: The Colombaie Necropolis in Volterra (Italy) Between Archaeological Perspective and Scientific Approach

13:45–14:00 Pollon, Nicola: At the Heart of the Pyre: Long-Term Use and Biritual Dynamics of the Iron Age Ustrinum of Padova

14:00–14:15 Kohl, Leona: Cremation Burials from the Traisen Valley: A Missing Link Between Hallstatt and La Tène Period?

14:15–14:30 Hluke, Keamogetse et al.: When Cremation Is a Minority Practice: Rethinking Mobility in Biritual Celtic Cemeteries of Moravia

14:30–14:45 Caserta, Elodie et al.: An Overview of the Use of Cremation in Mortuary Practices in Present-Day France During the Second Iron Age

14:45–15:00 Vasilkova Midoska, Anita: Cremation Funerary Practices in the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Necropolis of Kale–Zgropolci

15:00–15:30 Coffee break

15:30–15:45 Więckowski, Wiesław: A Roman Legionary Cemetery at Legio, Israel

15:45–16:00 Smaili, Tassadit: Cremation Practices and Carbonized Plant Remains in Ancient Tipasa (Algeria): Insights into Funerary Rituals and Human–Environment Interactions

16:00–16:15 Buck, Trudi & Frame, Rachel: Final Destination: A Newly Discovered Cremation Cemetery at Magna Roman Fort

16:15–16:30 Stadlmayr, Andrea et al.: (Un)accompanied into the Underworld? Observations on Cremation Burial Rites and Burial Spaces for Children from Roman Period Ovilavis/Wels, Upper Austria

16:30–16:45 Jankauskas, Vytas: Cremation in Lithuania in the 11th–13th Centuries: Between Narrative and Archaeological Excavations

16:45–17:00 Jończyk, Ludwika: Broken, Burnt and Mixed: Investigating Collective Cremation Cemeteries in Early Medieval Yotvingia

17:00–17:30 Discussion