Mortuary customs frequently provide the principal archaeological evidence for religious identity. Such customs are often seen as a direct reflection of religion and therefore a change of religion should be expected to result in a change in burial rite. There is growing evidence that the relationship is not so straightforward. In this paper we report results from Viking Age Iceland which challenge the previous view of a relatively clear-cut transition from pagan to Christian burial rites. The implication of our findings is that burial rites cannot be expected to change in lockstep with religious ideas. Burial rites reflect a variety of concerns held by those who perform them – and religion, ideology or cosmology may be the least of those. It is one of the characteristics of institutionalized religions like Christianity that they strive to design rituals and control their performance but the assertion of such control does not have to be coterminous with conversion.

中文翻译：

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约会宗教变化：北欧海盗时代的异教徒和基督教徒

房习俗经常为宗教身份提供主要的考古证据。这种习俗通常被视为宗教的直接反映，因此，改变宗教应该导致葬礼的改变。越来越多的证据表明这种关系不是那么简单。在本文中，我们报道了来自北欧海盗时代冰岛的结果，该结果挑战了以前从异教徒到基督教葬礼的相对清晰过渡的观点。我们的发现意味着，不能期望葬礼仪式与宗教观念同步变化。葬礼反映了执行葬礼的人们的各种关切，而宗教，意识形态或宇宙论可能是最少的。