By the later Bronze Age, almost all of Europe had ‘converted’ from inhumation to cremation burial practices. Although this change began a few hundred years earlier, it is commonly associated with the spread of the ‘Urnfield Culture’, the beginning of which is dated to c. 1300–1250 BC, depending on the region investigated. By then, cremation had become a dominant rite as witnessed by thousands of cremation burials in urns located within flat cemeteries, ranging in size from a few to many hundred burials. Although poorly understood, the change raises significant questions about alterations of cultural practices at the most fundamental level of society – its attitude towards death and the status of the deceased body. It is the nature of these changes that this volume aims to address.