Humans are an incredibly different species, mostly separated from the rest of the world’s inhabitants. Apart from language and intelligence, humans have unique social traditions. One example is the burial of the dead. While there are reports of several animals performing ‘funerals’ for their deceased, no other species perform ritualistic burials the way humans do.
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A Brief History of Burying
the Dead
2. Humans are an incredibly different species, mostly separated from the rest of the
world’s inhabitants. Apart from language and intelligence, humans have unique social
traditions. One example is the burial of the dead. While there are reports of several
animals performing ‘funerals’ for their deceased, no other species perform ritualistic
burials the way humans do.
This ‘tradition’ of burying the dead is evident, despite other forms of dealing with the
bodies of the deceased. Data from the National Funeral Directors Association (NDFA)
reveals that burial is still the more popular form of funeral service. In 2010, 53.3
percent of funerals consisted of burials, while 40.4 percent were cremations. Two years
ago, the two numbers were at the closest they’ve been at 48.5 and 45.4 percent,
respectively. While burials declined, they’re still quite popular.
Prehistoric Roots
Burials have come a long way. An archaeological site in Australia claims to be the oldest
known burial to date, estimated at roughly 40,000 years old. The team from the
University of Melbourne came upon the remains of who’s now known as Mungo Man,
named after the Lake Mungo region in New South Wales. The earliest estimate for the
age of Mungo Man’s remains is 62,000 years old. It might be a bit younger than initially
thought, but the burial itself is still the oldest.
3. Archaeologists still don’t know what type of Homo Sapiens species Mungo Man hails
from, but it’s possible that he is a Homo Sapiens Sapiens specimen. It’s the same
species as that of modern man, which is otherwise known as Cro-Magnon. The Cro-
Magnon remains are dated at roughly the same time as Mungo Man. For now, experts
do believe that whatever race/tribe Mungo Man came from may have had a funeral
tradition of some sort.
The Neanderthals are among the earlier human ancestors who, experts claim, practised
ritualistic burials. A team of scientists excavated a series of caves at La Chapelle-aux-
Saints in France, where experts discovered the first known possible evidence of
Neanderthal burials. Upon returning to a site first excavated in 1908, the team found
that a pit in one cave does not seem to be natural.
Neanderthals aren’t explicitly ‘human,’ but they are the closest genetic relatives of
modern people. Their species lived from 200,000 to 30,000 years ago in what is now
Europe and Asia, during the Pleistocene Epoch. There is enough evidence of a societal
structure among Neanderthals, and the discovery of more intentionally dug graves may
also prove that they’re the oldest human ancestors/relatives to have buried their dead.
