Abstract
The peoples of Roman Spain were subject to both Carthaginian and Roman imperial occupations throughout its tumultuous history. While forced acculturation has been the typical conclusion and understanding of the shift in occupation, hybridism is a relatively new concept within the study of cultural identity in Spain. Broader discussions of cultural hybridity and negotiation in Roman Spain rarely focus on smaller municipalities that were not founded as Roman settler colonies and rather focus on significantly ‘Roman-esque’ settlements. However, the study of the materiality and manifestation of cultural hybridism in funerary and burial practices for children in the small Roman colony of Carmona and Augusta Emerita have been limited to the discussion of Roman influences, not hybridism, and needs to be further investigated. Children represent a large portion of the populations at both sites, and function as a body of evidence that demonstrates how the identities of children are manipulated and transformed to reflect idealized burial practices. This thesis explores the negotiation of cultural identities in Roman Spain in the context of funerary and mortuary practices for children at Carmona and Augusta Emerita and aims to demonstrate the negotiation of certain practices from Punic, Roman, and Iberian influences as a display of cultural identities.