Thread

1. MadrasTh0rn · 1790632138 · focus · HN ↗

   Was subfloor burial common in Neolithic?

   1. throwaway27448 · 1790635074 · focus · HN ↗

      Estimating "common" is quite difficult, but given that there are pre-colonial aboriginal australian burial sites, we can estimate that it either can be traced to Africa or is sufficiently common to not be surprising. There is even evidence (not proof) of neanderthal burial rituals, fwiw.

      1. gradus_ad · 1790637053 · focus · HN ↗

         I suspect it has to do with our advanced capacity for emotion. The death of a loved one is so difficult to bear, having their body sitting out in the open in a rotting state would be horrific. Burying serves the dual purpose of hiding their decomposition and keeping them close to the community.

         1. mohamedkoubaa · 1790637921 · focus · HN ↗

            I think it's likely associated with desert cultures since vegetation nucleates around burial sites due to access to organic material.

            1. pfdietz · 1790639134 · focus · HN ↗

               Fun fact: forensic teams locate buried bodies by looking for vegetation that grows above them. There's a lot of fertilizer there.
         2. ASalazarMX · 1790637969 · focus · HN ↗

            Also, disposing of corpses means less diseases around. It's possible that communities that carelessly left the dead around unwittingly opted out of the genetic pool.
         3. BurningFrog · 1790645094 · focus · HN ↗

            Unless you're going to eat your loved (or hated) one you need to get rid of the body before it starts rotting, for health reasons.

            Burial is the standard way for very good practical reasons. Having somewhere to put a flower is also nice.

            1. throwaway27448 · 1790651918 · focus · HN ↗

               > Burial is the standard way

               (Assuming you mean the obvious and immediate semantics of digging a hole and placing the corpse within it...)

               It may be now, but there are many ways to provide corpse disposal without risking health. Sky and tree burials are clear evidence of other corpse disposal methods. I imagine cremation is pretty obvious to humans too.

               Some people even exhume the bodies and perform rituals with it. I find this nauseous but it wouldn't be a thing if societies were being eliminated from its effects.

               1. BurningFrog · 1790694808 · focus · HN ↗

                  You're of course right, but note that I said "standard", not "only".

                  What the "alternate" methods all have in common is they don't leave a rotting corpse around. I imagine populations who did this did not tend to survive :)

                  I looked it up, and sky burial is/was done in places like Tibet, where the ground is either rock or frozen, so you often physically can't dig a grave.

   2. treis · 1790644423 · focus · HN ↗

      Seems like you'd quickly run out of floor and/or end up with a lot of bodies in one place. And are you chipping up your plaster floor every time someone dies? I'm pretty skeptical that this makes sense as a practice. Seems far more likely that a building was built over a forgotten grave.

      1. AlotOfReading · 1790647739 · focus · HN ↗

         We know of many, many cultures that have buried remains under house floors as ritual practice. Sometimes our "common sense" isn't a reliable guide to distant cultures.

         1. wongarsu · 1790672710 · focus · HN ↗

            Including many Christian churches. Though there it is limited to people of particular importance to the church, faith or public community because of the practical concerns mentioned above. A lot of churches are many centuries old, and having a couple bodies buried under the floor over that time seems not that uncommon (at least in Europe)

            1. treis · 1790710661 · focus · HN ↗

               We don't bury everyone under churches, however as we would quickly run out of room.
      2. sophacles · 1790702246 · focus · HN ↗

         The floor of most houses for most of history was made of dirt.
   3. BirAdam · 1790682744 · focus · HN ↗

      Currently, while not a majority of cultures buried people under their homes, it was common enough.

      Çatalhöyük

      Non-royal Sumer and Babylon

      Poorer Mayans (from what can be found, there's much of the ancient Maya unexplored)

      The LoWiili culture and some other West African cultures

      The Tikopia until the arrival of Christianity

      Some neolithic sites in Europe, but not believed to have been too common there

      1. redhed · 1790692478 · focus · HN ↗

         Also in Neolithic Yellow River it was pretty common to bury infants in jars/pots underneath the floor from what I remember.

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