El recuerdo del cementerio continuó en tiempos históricos entre los habitantes de la zona, pero su uso cambió, y sólo fueron enterrados unos pocos infantes. Los habitantes prehispánicos utilizaron esta área como un cementerio de cremaciones en torno a 1300-1450 dC. Exploramos la transformación de un sitio en un espacio de rememoración mediante la evaluación de la historia de vida del cementerio de cremaciones en Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, México. We argue that critical and contextualized approaches to cemeteries are needed to understand the complexity of how burial spaces are used through time. Memory of the cemetery persisted into historical times among inhabitants of the area, but its use changed. Prehispanic inhabitants used this cemetery as a cremation burial ground ca. We explore the transformation of a site into a place of remembrance by evaluating the life history of an urnfield at Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, Mexico. Such theories need to engage with broad cross-cultural themes and also remain sensitive to the considerable variety of mortuary procedures involving fire used at different times and in different places. Therefore, alongside increasingly refined methodologies for investigating burnt bones, it is argued that archaeologists need to redress this imbalance by developing explicit theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of cremation. This relative failure to adequately engage with the complexity and the variability of cremation practices across cultures seems connected to the fact that most of the theoretical debates and developments in mortuary archaeology have, until quite recently, been primarily geared to the investigation of unburned human remains. This chapter argues that in contrast to the rich and widespread evidence for cremation in the archaeological record, theoretical approaches in the archaeology of cremation have been relatively thin on the ground until very recently. How can we begin to understand and explain the changing significance of cremation in past societies? From many parts of the world and for many periods of human history from as early as the Upper Palaeolithic (Bowler et al., 1980) to recent centuries, archaeologists have uncovered and investigated material evidence for the use of fire as a means of transforming and disposing of the dead. NOTE: This is a modestly revised 2nd edition of my 2008 paper with the same title. These changes in cremation parallel broader sociopolitical changes where increases in social differentiation and complexity are proposed for the Classic period Hohokam. This change possibly occurred as a result of a general decrease in remembrance networks. Perceptions of personhood during this period appear to have defined self as a complete, bounded unit, even after transformation by fire. Later in the Classic period, a higher frequency of cremated remains were not divided but instead transferred as a unit to secondary deposits. This behavior suggests a relational social construction of self where burning transformed the deceased and the remains were considered part-person and part-object. In the Preclassic period, after bodies were burned, the remains were distributed as inalienable possessions within social networks. However, by analyzing changes through time in cremation rituals, it was possible to infer that some aspects of personhood did change. Results indicate that certain aspects of personhood did not change across time and space at these sites. Changing perspectives on concepts of personhood are explored by deconstructing mortuary customs from 10 Tucson Basin (Arizona) Hohokam archaeological sites dating from the Preclassic (A.D.

Hohokam hospital