I’ve often wondered how the ritual of burying or cremating the dead started, or in this case, throwing the remains of the dead into a sealed cave.
The only thing I could think of was that it had to do with dreams. Neanderthals dreamed, right? I mean, even dogs dream. And Neanderthals probably understood what dreams were about just as well as present-day dogs do — that is, they didn’t understand where dreams came from at all!
So what if you were a Neanderthal and just killed your rival because you wanted to take his stuff. You left his dead body in some far away cave and went home to get a good night’s sleep. But then in the middle of the night, while you were sleeping, you saw the dead guy come into your cave, take back his stuff, and hover over you brandishing his Neolithic knife, ready to kill you!
You sit bolt upright under your deer skin, and try to fight him off. But he’s not there. But he was just there!
You’re up for the rest of the night guarding your cave against the dead guy. You vow that the first thing you’re going to do in the morning is go back to the dead guy and make sure he can never visit you again.
And what’s the best way to do that? Bury the guy’s body under six feet of earth or torch it over a very big fire!
What do you think on this slow Sunday night? Is this a plausible theory of the origins of burial and cremation of the dead? Do you have a more compelling theory?
But maybe it came from love. Your wife or child had died of a fever, and the next thing you know, a hyena walks past, munching on your loved one's head.
You might decide that keeping the dead away from such desecration makes you feel better. That is, if you have anything like human emotion.
Thias wasn’t a Neandertal group. Burial and cremation would have been in large part an effort to alleviate the smell. Also, the disposal of human remains may have grown out of the need (eventually) to keep loved ones from being eaten by other humans; in cultures where cannibalism wasn’t practiced, it wouldn’t have done to leave remains uncovered where scavengers and part-time scavengers would be attracted to the camp or village or whatever. There have been a few cultures which practiced excarnation, that is, the deliberate exposure of the dead to aerial scavenging. There was a problem around 15 years ago with Zoroastrians in India — the specific vulture that they rely on to excarnate their dead were no longer numerous enough to get the job done, and the facility used to hold the dead was reeking to high heaven.
I may have an explanation. Just finished reading a book, “Birds Without Wings” by Louis de Bernieres which covers the period of he Balkin Wars and WW1, in and around Turkey and the failing Ottoman Empire. In the story, a woman has died and been buried, but was accused of causing the death by plague of other villagers. Bodies were typically buried 5 years and then dug up, brushed clean and the bones put into a niche in the church. In this case it was believed if the bones were clean and white the woman was innocent. The women of the village are described as crying, singing, telling poems and in general being quite emotional as the body was dug up. Could this be a remnant of a 7,000 year old custom?
The book also describes the horrors of war of that period. Everybody was killing everybody, and the atrocities committed by at least 7 or 8 peoples against others, were as gruesome as those committed by ISIL/Daesh. They included torture and rape of women and little girls, crucifixions, death marches, etc. Also, large populations were displaced. Christians of Greek ancestry were kicked out of Turkey. Turks were kicked out of Greece, and many other similar bits of insanity. Read this book if you want to better understand today’s middle east and the mess it is in.