tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/burials-34348/articles
Burials – The Conversation
2024-01-22T01:03:09Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220664
2024-01-22T01:03:09Z
2024-01-22T01:03:09Z
You can pay to have your ashes buried on the moon. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should
<p>When NASA attempted to return to the Moon for the first time in 50 years on <a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/tag/commercial-lunar-payload-services/">January 8</a>, more was at risk than just US$108 million worth of development and equipment.</p>
<p>The agency earned the ire of the Native American Navajo people, who made a bid to stop the launch because of an unusual inclusion in the payload. </p>
<p>The Peregrine lander (which completed its controlled re-entry into the atmosphere <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-science-astrobotic-peregrine-mission-one-concludes/">late last week</a>) was carrying <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/05/world/peregrine-moon-mission-navajo-nation-objection-human-remains-scn/index.html">human ashes</a>, including those of famed science fiction author <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/remains-of-sci-fi-legends-to-burn-in-earth-s-atmosphere-20240119-p5eyic.html">Arthur C. Clarke</a>. A commercial partnership also allowed paying customers to send their mementos to the Moon.</p>
<p>As space exploration becomes increasingly privatised and commercial, you can now send your favourite stuff to the Moon. But what does that mean, both ethically and legally?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/privatised-moon-landings-the-two-us-missions-set-to-open-a-new-era-of-commercial-lunar-exploration-219546">Privatised Moon landings: the two US missions set to open a new era of commercial lunar exploration</a>
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<h2>The Moon open for business</h2>
<p>US company Astrobotic owns the Peregrine, which is the size of a small car. It ran into fatal <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/01/14/1224723508/peregrine-moon-lander-heads-back-toward-earth-and-should-burn-up-in-the-atmosphe">fuel issues</a> shortly after being launched on Vulcan Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral.</p>
<p>On board are “vanity canisters”. The idea arose <a href="https://group.dhl.com/content/dam/deutschepostdhl/en/media-relations/press-releases/2024/pr-dhl-moonbox-20240108.pdf">in a partnership</a> between the firm and global freight company DHL.</p>
<p>Under the deal, anyone can send two and a half centimetre by five centimetre package to the lunar surface for less than US$500. Apart from size, there were a few other limitations on what each package could contain.</p>
<p>Astrobotic, founded in 2007 and based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is one of several US companies providing commercial lunar payload services to NASA to deliver science and technology to the Moon. Peregrine was also carrying <a href="https://www.astrobotic.com/lunar-delivery/manifest/">scientific instruments</a> from six countries and many science teams.</p>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly, sending ashes into space is not new aboard suborbital and Earth orbital flights. </p>
<p>Two American companies make a business of the service starting at just a few thousand dollars – <a href="https://www.celestis.com/">Celestis</a> and <a href="https://elysiumspace.com/">Elysium Space</a>. The practice is embraced by many, including astronauts who have been in space. </p>
<p>A Moon burial (yes, you can buy one) costs more – around US$13,000.</p>
<p>Commercial payloads launched from US soil require <a href="https://www.faa.gov/space/licenses/payload_reviews">approval</a>, but that approval process only covers safety, national security, and foreign policy.</p>
<p>Peregrine, if it had made it, would have marked the first commercial lunar burial. It’s uncharted territory as other worlds become within reach, although it is not the first time it has come up. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/earth-isnt-the-only-planet-with-seasons-but-they-can-look-wildly-different-on-other-worlds-216874">Earth isn't the only planet with seasons, but they can look wildly different on other worlds</a>
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<p>NASA pledged to consult in the future after an outcry from the Navajo when, 20 years ago, it carried some of Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes to the Moon aboard the Lunar Prospector probe. Like many other indigenous cultures, the Navajo Nation considers the Moon sacred and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PresidentNygren/posts/892377286222557?ref=embed_post">opposes</a> using it as a memorial site. </p>
<p>However, NASA said in a press briefing it <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2024/01/08/navajo-human-remains-moon/">had no control</a> over what was on Peregrine, highlighting the gaps between commercial enterprise and international space law. </p>
<h2>A legal minefield</h2>
<p>Another question concerns the rules in individual nations on where and how human ashes can be located, handled, and transported and how those could extend to space. For example, in Germany, ashes <a href="https://canada.diplo.de/ca-en/consular-services/08-OtherConsularServices/death/1101248">must be buried</a> in a cemetery.</p>
<p>With space privatisation accelerating, the ethical and legal maze deepens. </p>
<p>The Outer Space Treaty (OST) <a href="https://www.unoosa.org/pdf/gares/ARES_21_2222E.pdf">declares space</a> the “province of all mankind” while banning national appropriation. </p>
<p>It fails, however, to address what private companies and individuals can do. </p>
<p>The recent <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-accords/">Artemis Accords</a>, signed by 32 nations, expand protection to lunar sites of historical significance. But these protections only apply to governments, not commercial missions. </p>
<p>And no one owns the Moon to grant burial rights, or any other world or celestial body. </p>
<p>The treaty requires states to authorise and supervise activities in space. It requires “due regard” for the interests of other states. </p>
<p>Many countries have space law that includes grounds for refusing payload items not in their national interest, for example <a href="https://www.peraturan.go.id/files2/uu-no-21-tahun-2013_terjemah.pdf">Indonesia</a> and <a href="https://www.mbie.govt.nz/science-and-technology/space/our-regulatory-regime/#:%7E:text=The%20Act%20regulates%20%E2%80%94%20through%20licences,Innovation%20and%20Employment%20(MBIE)">New Zealand</a>. </p>
<p>Nations apparently without such consideration, including Australia and the US, may need to consider expanding this template with the emergence of the commercial world in a traditionally governmental arena.</p>
<h2>Where to draw a line?</h2>
<p>Earth’s orbit is already clogged with defunct satellites and, further out, items like <a href="https://www.cnet.com/science/space/heres-where-elon-musks-tesla-roadster-is-after-five-years-in-space/">Elon Musk’s Tesla</a>. </p>
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<p>We have already spread space probes across other worlds, including the Moon, Mars, Titan, and Venus, but much may be <a href="https://www.planetary.org/articles/space-trash">treasure rather than junk</a>, according to space archaeologist Alice Gorman. </p>
<p>For example, the Apollo astronauts left official mementos, such as a plaque marking the first human footsteps on the lunar surface. Some have left personal ones, too, like Apollo 16’s Charles Duke, who left a <a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/strange-things-humans-have-left-on-moon">framed family photo</a>.</p>
<p>However, sending a clipping of your hair or the ashes of your pet dog to the Moon may not qualify as culturally and historically important. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-the-moons-south-pole-to-an-ice-covered-ocean-world-several-exciting-space-missions-are-slated-for-launch-in-2024-218000">From the Moon's south pole to an ice-covered ocean world, several exciting space missions are slated for launch in 2024</a>
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<p>The problem, therefore, is where we want to place a line in the sand as we step out into the cosmos onto the shorelines of other worlds. </p>
<p>We cannot turn back the clock on private space enterprise, nor should we. </p>
<p>But this failed mission with ashes and vanity payloads exemplifies the unexplored questions in the legal and ethical infrastructure to support commercial activities. </p>
<p>It is worth pausing for thought on future commercialisation such as mining asteroids and the eventual colonisation of space.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220664/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carol Oliver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Sending human ashes and personal mementoes to the Moon is now possible, but it opens up a maze of legal and ethical conundrums.
Carol Oliver, Professor in Science Communication and Astrobiology, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209185
2023-08-02T12:40:04Z
2023-08-02T12:40:04Z
Shared horse and human burials show how deeply the vikings cared for their animal companions
<p>Is your pet part of the family? That’s nothing new. Archeological evidence exists to suggest that the vikings held their own animals in high – even intimate – regard, taking them with them on voyages. Earlier this year, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0280589">scientific evidence found</a> for the first time that – as early as the ninth century – vikings brought horses, dogs and other animals <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0280589">with them</a> across the North Sea.</p>
<p>The prevailing assumption had been that enterprising viking armies had simply acquired horses (along with other items of plunder) in their <a href="https://theconversation.com/hideouts-harbours-and-homes-how-vikings-may-have-owed-their-success-to-their-encampments-148550">raids on the British Isles</a>. But these findings suggest that the depth of the relationships viking-age people had with animals have been dramatically underrepresented.</p>
<p>But why? After all, the vast majority of people – Scandinavian or otherwise – living through the viking age relied on farming to survive. Why has it taken so long for researchers to realise that these humans and animals sustained deep, complex, emotional and mutually enriching relationships? </p>
<p>Past societies cared about humans, animals and things <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/reflections-on-posthuman-ethics-grievability-and-the-morethanhuman-worlds-of-iron-and-viking-age-scandinavia/1B266324E6F36C562787BB2BA4D68F89">differently</a>. Some humans could be owned, even viewed as objects and valued far less than some animals. In <a href="https://www.brepols.net/products/978-2-503-60090-1">our research</a>, we use both archaeology and texts <a href="https://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-norse-sorceress.html">to show that</a> some horses in communities such as those of viking-age Scandinavia and Iceland could be seen as “people” themselves, capable of agency and worthy of careful and deliberate treatment.</p>
<h2>Horses in human graves</h2>
<p>Horses in the viking age were seen as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20650833.pdf">liminal creatures</a>, meaning they were capable of crossing physical and conceptual boundaries, travelling over different terrains, and even between worlds. They also held cosmological significance.</p>
<p>Norse poetry depicts <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Odin-Norse-deity">the god Odin</a> riding to the land of the dead on his eight-legged horse <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sleipnir">Sleipnir</a>. A newly-discovered bracteate – or pendant – bearing a runic inscription from Denmark might also suggest an association between Odin (or at least someone who identifies himself as “Odin’s man”) and a horse companion as far back as the early fifth century AD.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-norse-god-odin-older-than-previously-thought-an-expert-analyses-new-evidence-202075">Is Norse god Odin older than previously thought? An expert analyses new evidence</a>
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<p>Historically, horse bodies in viking-age burials have been interpreted as <a href="https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/26678/7064.pdf?sequence=1#:%7E:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20popular,home%20of%20the%20god%20Odin.">symbolic of the journey to the afterlife</a>, part of the possessions of the deceased in the afterlife, or as status symbols. But these interpretations miss something vital – the bond between horse and rider.</p>
<p>Horses have special relationships with their riders, as both have to learn to <a href="https://press.nordicopenaccess.no/index.php/noasp/catalog/view/51/234/2166">work with each other</a>. In Norse poetry (some of which links to the viking age) horses were a vital part of warrior identities. Legendary poems about the heroes <a href="https://pantheon.org/articles/h/hundingsbane.html">Helgi</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Siegfried#:%7E:text=Siegfried%2C%20Old%20Norse%20Sigurd%2C%20figure,tradition%20do%20not%20always%20agree.">Sigurd</a> depict heroes who are almost <a href="https://harrietjean.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/my-ma.pdf">inseparable from their horse companions</a>. <a href="https://pantheon.org/articles/g/grani.html">Grani</a>, the horse of Sigurd the dragon-slayer for example, is <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004514935/BP000008.xml?language=en">depicted mourning Sigurd</a> after his death.</p>
<p>Evidence of partnerships between humans and horses has been found in burials from across northern Europe, from the grand ship burials of <a href="https://www.historyhit.com/locations/the-viking-museum-at-ladby/">Ladby</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Bill/publication/281118137_Revisiting_Gokstad_Interdisciplinary_investigations_of_a_find_complex_excavated_in_the_19th_century/links/55d733a908ae9d65948d841a/Revisiting-Gokstad-Interdisciplinary-investigations-of-a-find-complex-excavated-in-the-19th-century.pdf">Gokstad</a>, to the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WRypEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT12&dq=equestrian+burial&ots=1uBN5CSY2S&sig=c2IB5ahkQLW2Map_6MMgTR2p0Ac">equestrian burials</a> of tenth-century Denmark, to the more modest <a href="https://opinvisindi.is/handle/20.500.11815/1004">human-horse burials in viking-age Iceland</a>. But horses weren’t just buried with men.</p>
<p>At <a href="https://www.jna.uni-kiel.de/index.php/offa/article/download/729/785/2813">Trekroner-Grydehøj</a> in Sjælland, Denmark, a woman was buried with a horse next to her, one leg partially overlapping with the human body (above). Something about this human and this horse meant such an intimate arrangement was appropriate. </p>
<p>The woman is thought to have been a ritual specialist, possibly a sorceress, buried with an iron-tipped copper rod and a range of other objects including some knives, a bucket and a small wooden box. A large flat stone, a dog which had been cut in half and some sheep bones, as well as some iron pins (possibly for fastening baggage to a saddle) and a dog chain completed the burial.</p>
<p>At <a href="https://journals.uio.no/viking/article/view/9047/7787">Løve in Vestfold, Norway</a>, a tenth-century burial also has a <a href="https://journals.uio.no/viking/article/view/9047/7787">horse laid next to a woman</a>. Like the woman at Trekroner-Grydehøj, they are thought to have been a ritual specialist. But the woman wasn’t the only one buried with the tools of her trade. An iron rangle (a metal ring with smaller rings attached to it) was laid on the chest of the horse buried alongside her. When attached to wagon harnesses or bridles, the metal rings would jingle. It is thought that it may have played a role in <a href="https://sagy.vikingove.cz/en/the-viking-rangle/">viking-age rituals</a>.</p>
<p>Were these women buried with these horses because they had special relationships? Or because they were sorceresses? Or did being a sorceress entail close relationships with these animals? We believe that, among other rituals, horses appear to have been vital participants in the processes and practices of funerals.</p>
<h2>Good to die with, good to live with</h2>
<p>Research shows that relationships with horses have a host of benefits, <a href="https://theconversation.com/pet-therapy-how-dogs-cats-and-horses-help-improve-human-wellbeing-180378">especially for young people</a>. It’s interesting then, that there is a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/animalhuman-relationships-in-medieval-iceland/fostering-relations-the-animalhuman-home-in-the-islendingasogur/EE042530D875403AFBD821DD56112EB9">repeated insistence</a> <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/animalhuman-relationships-in-medieval-iceland/fostering-relations-the-animalhuman-home-in-the-islendingasogur/EE042530D875403AFBD821DD56112EB9">in Norse poetry</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/animalhuman-relationships-in-medieval-iceland/fostering-relations-the-animalhuman-home-in-the-islendingasogur/EE042530D875403AFBD821DD56112EB9">medieval sagas</a> that young men should <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/animalhuman-relationships-in-medieval-iceland/fostering-relations-the-animalhuman-home-in-the-islendingasogur/EE042530D875403AFBD821DD56112EB9">practise horse grooming and training</a>. Horses are considered <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/animalhuman-relationships-in-medieval-iceland/fostering-relations-the-animalhuman-home-in-the-islendingasogur/EE042530D875403AFBD821DD56112EB9">partners in farming</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/animalhuman-relationships-in-medieval-iceland/fostering-relations-the-animalhuman-home-in-the-islendingasogur/EE042530D875403AFBD821DD56112EB9">often</a> even <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/animalhuman-relationships-in-medieval-iceland/fostering-relations-the-animalhuman-home-in-the-islendingasogur/EE042530D875403AFBD821DD56112EB9">members of families</a> in these texts.</p>
<p>The 13th-century saga <a href="https://shorturl.at/kp046">Bjarnar Saga Hítdœlakappa</a> even depicts a woman who appears to benefit from a medieval form of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003180180-7/health-healing-social-body-medieval-iceland-christopher-crocker-yoav-tirosh">equine-assisted therapy</a>, finding relief from her ailment by sitting on her horse as it is led around a field:</p>
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<p>The most relief was offered to her by sitting on horseback, as Þórðr led her horse back and forth, and he did so, even though it was a great pain to him, as he wanted to try to comfort her.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Our YouTube interview on the topic with professor Howard Williams of the Archaeodeath channel.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In a time of ecological upheaval, looking to the past to understand the relationships humans have had with animals can inspire different approaches to the present and the future. Given a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ap-new-zealand-bangladesh-albert-forestry-b2145074.html">recent victory by Māori activists</a> granting legal personhood and rights to a river, looking for historical analogies, such as the vikings and their horses, can encourage us all to continue to push for more responsible relationships with the non-human world.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Ruiter receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (grant 756- 2021-0499) and Berit Wallenbergs Stiftelse (grant BWS 2022.0040). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harriet Evans Tang receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust (grant RPG-2019-258) as part of the Cohabiting with Vikings Project. </span></em></p>
The findings suggest that the depth of the relationships Viking-age people had with animals have been dramatically underrepresented.
Keith Ruiter, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Suffolk
Harriet Evans Tang, Post Doctoral Research Associate, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/171192
2023-06-30T12:37:43Z
2023-06-30T12:37:43Z
Is it legal to sell human remains?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534894/original/file-20230629-29-fif855.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C15%2C2108%2C1393&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The handling and disposition of human bodies raises all sorts of ethical and legal questions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/coffin-on-stage-royalty-free-image/85637547?phrase=funeral&adppopup=true">Jupiterimages/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Four individuals were <a href="https://media.wbur.org/wp/2023/06/morgue-indictment.pdf">charged with federal crimes</a> in June 2023 related to the “unlawful transport” across state lines of human remains taken from the Harvard Medical School morgue. This indictment was part of a larger effort by the Department of Justice to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdpa/pr/six-charged-trafficking-stolen-human-remains">shut down a national network</a> of people trafficking in human remains. </p>
<p>Cedric Lodge, who had been the morgue manager <a href="http://hms.harvard.edu/news-events/anatomical-gift-program-resources/frequently-asked-questions">until his firing in May</a>, was accused of removing human remains that had been donated to the medical school. According to <a href="https://media.wbur.org/wp/2023/06/morgue-indictment.pdf">the indictment</a>, he and his wife, Denise Lodge, shipped those remains to Katrina MacLean, the owner of a store called Kat’s Creepy Creations, and Joshua Taylor, an individual living in Pennsylvania. Taylor transferred nearly US$40,000 to the Lodges via PayPal, with memos that included “head number 7” and “braiiiiiins.”</p>
<p>As a scholar whose research is centered on the <a href="https://law.wfu.edu/faculty/profile/marshtd/">laws regarding the status, treatment and disposition of human remains</a>, I am often asked about the legality and ethics of <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/laws-permitting-human-remains_b_1769082">selling bodies</a>, especially when stories like the <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/crime/2023/06/16/is-it-legal-to-sell-human-remains-harvard-morgue-scandal-raises-questions/">Harvard morgue case</a> or <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/tiktok-user-sells-human-bones-ignites-ethical-debate/story?id=80541972">a TikTok user selling human bones</a> begin to circulate.</p>
<p>My answers often surprise people.</p>
<h2>State by state</h2>
<p>It is not illegal to sell human remains under federal law. That’s why the defendants in the Harvard Medical School case were <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdpa/pr/six-charged-trafficking-stolen-human-remains">charged with interstate transport of stolen goods</a>, rather than “trafficking human remains.” </p>
<p>There is actually very little federal law regarding the dead. The most significant is the Federal Trade Commission’s <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/truth-advertising/funeral-rule">Funeral Rule</a>, which requires funeral homes to provide certain disclosures to consumers.</p>
<p>Instead, the vast majority of law respecting the dead is state law, which varies significantly.</p>
<p>By my count, the sale of human remains is broadly and expressly illegal in only eight states: <a href="http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0800-0899/0872/Sections/0872.01.html#:%7E:text=View%20Entire%20Chapter,775.082%20or%20s.">Florida</a>, <a href="https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-31-health/ga-code-sect-31-21-41/">Georgia</a>, <a href="https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter272/Section72">Massachusetts</a>, <a href="https://www.revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=194.410&bid=10000&hl=#:%7E:text=194.410.,commits%20a%20class%20E%20felony.">Missouri</a>, <a href="https://www.revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=194.410&bid=10000&hl=#:%7E:text=194.410.,commits%20a%20class%20E%20felony.">New Hampshire</a>, <a href="https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c043.php">South Carolina</a>, <a href="https://casetext.com/statute/texas-codes/penal-code/title-9-offenses-against-public-order-and-decency/chapter-42-disorderly-conduct-and-related-offenses/section-4208-abuse-of-corpse#:%7E:text=Section%2042.08%20%2D%20Abuse%20of%20Corpse%20(a)%20A%20person%20commits,illegally%20disinterred%3B%20(3)%20sells">Texas</a> and <a href="https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title32.1/chapter8/section32.1-303/">Virginia</a>. </p>
<p>Perhaps one reason the Harvard morgue case is being handled by the Department of Justice is that although selling human remains is illegal in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, it does not violate state law in Pennsylvania, where some of the activity took place.</p>
<p>In more than two dozen other states, <a href="https://www.lawyersandjudges.com/products/the-law-of-human-remains">it is illegal to sell human remains</a> only under certain circumstances. A number of these states make it expressly illegal to sell human remains or organs that were donated for anatomical study, transplantation or medical therapy. </p>
<p>Most commonly, it is illegal to sell human remains that have been unlawfully removed from a place of burial. For example, in <a href="https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/PDF/ByArticle/Chapter_70/Article_3.pdf">North Carolina</a>, it is a crime to “knowingly exhibit or sell any human skeletal remains from unmarked burials.” However, this specific phrasing means that the North Carolina law could not be applied to a situation like the Harvard case, where the body was obtained from a morgue. Nor could it be applied to the sale of body parts other than skeletal remains.</p>
<h2>Up for sale</h2>
<p>In fact, it is surprisingly easy to purchase human remains in the United States, even in states where such sales are expressly illegal. There are brick-and-mortar stores, like <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/katrina-maclean-peabody-creepy-dolls-store-charged-harvard-morgue-body-part-theft/">Kat’s Creepy Creations</a> in Massachusetts, which sell skeletal remains. </p>
<p>But increasingly, retail traffic in human remains <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.13147">takes place online</a>. The sales of human remains have been banned on Etsy and eBay <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2012/08/10/technology/etsy-bans-drugs/index.html">since 2012</a> <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/skull-sales">and 2016</a>, respectively, but social networks like Facebook are <a href="https://www.livescience.com/human-bone-trade-facebook.html">rife with groups</a> where body parts are sold and traded. One of the defendants in the Harvard Medical School case <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/woman-posted-human-skull-instagram-before-harvard-morgue-indictment-1807078">advertised at least one skull on Instagram</a>.</p>
<p>It is difficult to determine how human remains end up in the retail stream because most body parts for sale have been de-identified. In other words, the seller does not name the deceased person whose remains are being sold and usually does not reveal how the remains were obtained – and there is no law requiring them to do so.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534901/original/file-20230629-26-9mgo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a green uniform and cap walks around a tombstone with a small fence around it in a wooded area." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534901/original/file-20230629-26-9mgo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534901/original/file-20230629-26-9mgo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534901/original/file-20230629-26-9mgo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534901/original/file-20230629-26-9mgo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534901/original/file-20230629-26-9mgo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534901/original/file-20230629-26-9mgo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534901/original/file-20230629-26-9mgo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A historian inspects a Civil War-era grave dug up by grave robbers on National Park Service property in Maryland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/wheeler8-date-5-31-06-photographer-katherine-frey-the-news-photo/103800735?adppopup=true">Katherine Frey/The The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are a few explicitly illegal methods of obtaining human remains in the U.S. Grave robbery, for example, <a href="https://www.lawyersandjudges.com/products/the-law-of-human-remains?_pos=2&_sid=b1c0b1545&_ss=r&variant=6027975619">is specifically outlawed</a> in nearly every state. Digging up corpses was a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-need-cadavers-19th-century-medical-students-raided-baltimores-graves-180970629/">significant problem</a> in the 1800s, when medical schools first began <a href="https://theconversation.com/medical-students-honor-body-donors-through-words-deeds-and-ceremonies-208168">to teach students through anatomical dissection</a>.</p>
<p>When a person dies in the U.S., there are limited legal options for the disposition of their body, which effectively prevents an individual from arranging to sell their own remains. </p>
<p>In every state, remains may be buried, entombed, cremated, donated to science or removed from the state or order to be lawfully disposed of elsewhere. More than half of states have legalized a process called <a href="https://www.cremationassociation.org/page/alkalinehydrolysis">alkaline hydrolysis</a>, also known as <a href="https://www.cremationassociation.org/blogpost/776820/313847/What-do-you-know-about-Alkaline-Hydrolysis">aquamation or water cremation</a>, which dissolves the body in a base solution. In seven states, remains may be disposed of via <a href="https://connectingdirectors.com/65987-nevada-legalizes-nor">natural organic reduction</a>, also called <a href="https://www.popsci.com/environment/composting-body-burial/">human composting</a>.</p>
<h2>Final gift</h2>
<p>If an individual or their family donates remains to science, typically a nonprofit organization or university takes possession of the remains.</p>
<p>The use of those remains varies widely. A medical school like Harvard has an <a href="https://meded.hms.harvard.edu/anatomical-gift-program">anatomical donation program</a> to obtain intact cadavers to be used in gross anatomy labs and other teaching settings. </p>
<p>However, people sometimes donate to a non-transplant tissue bank, often called “body brokers.” Given the high costs of funeral arrangements in the U.S., some families donate a loved one’s remains to body brokers, who dispose of remains without cost to the family. </p>
<p>Bluntly speaking, body brokers carve up human remains and distribute them to be used in medical therapy or research, with little regulation – the subject of a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodies-brokers/">2017 Reuters investigation</a>. They do charge for processing and transporting human remains, and one such company, Science Care, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodies-science/">generated $27 million in revenue in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>Body brokers are <a href="https://nfda.org/news/media-center/nfda-news-releases/id/7475/congress-takes-significant-step-to-regulate-body-brokers">more controversial</a> than university anatomical donation programs, but in both cases, remains are used for medical education or research. The ultimate disposition of remains donated to science is typically cremation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534896/original/file-20230629-25452-4u7cgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A body lies covered by a white sheet on a metal table in a white and yellow lab-like room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534896/original/file-20230629-25452-4u7cgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534896/original/file-20230629-25452-4u7cgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534896/original/file-20230629-25452-4u7cgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534896/original/file-20230629-25452-4u7cgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534896/original/file-20230629-25452-4u7cgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534896/original/file-20230629-25452-4u7cgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534896/original/file-20230629-25452-4u7cgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Human remains donated to science are meant to be disposed of with respect.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/pathology-department-in-a-hospital-royalty-free-image/539882937?phrase=morgue&adppopup=true">Team Static/fStop via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seeking justice</h2>
<p>If bodies donated to science are not <a href="https://nfda.org/news/media-center/nfda-news-releases/id/7475/congress-takes-significant-step-to-regulate-body-brokers">treated with the respect and dignity</a> that the donors were promised by the recipient institution, as in the Harvard Medical School case, there are several possible legal options. </p>
<p>First, there could be federal or state criminal charges in the small number of states that broadly outlaw the sale of human remains. </p>
<p>Second, 30 states outlaw the mistreatment or mutilation of human remains. These criminal laws are generally referred to as “<a href="https://funerallaw.typepad.com/blog/2015/10/does-the-law-limit-what-you-can-do-with-human-remains-yes-understanding-abuse-of-corpse-laws.html">abuse of corpse” statutes</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, the families of the donors may have a private cause of action against the recipient institution or against people who took the remains without permission. There are <a href="https://www.ali.org/projects/show/torts-miscellaneous-provisions/">two possible tort claims</a> that families could bring: interference with the family’s right to respectfully dispose of the remains, known formally as “interference with the right of sepulcher,” and infliction of emotional harm based on mistreatment of human remains.</p>
<p>I have yet to encounter a person who is not horrified by the treatment of the bodies donated to Harvard Medical School and then diverted into curiosity shops and private collections, especially when I explain that such activities are not clearly illegal in every state. </p>
<p>Respectful treatment of human remains, and of the loved ones they leave behind, appears to be a universal value. Yet there is a clear mismatch between these social norms and the law – for now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171192/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya D. Marsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The short answer: It’s complicated – and depends, in part, where you live.
Tanya D. Marsh, Professor of Law, Wake Forest University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207200
2023-06-14T12:35:42Z
2023-06-14T12:35:42Z
How Black Americans combated racism from beyond the grave
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531729/original/file-20230613-29-v4r4v4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=628%2C18%2C2933%2C2017&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The addition of a simple 'Mr.' or 'Mrs.' could be a quiet act of resistance.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2020/138/UNCEM_35636_03eec082-5c04-49d3-923d-56e52521da3c.jpeg?v=1589684490">Rae Tucker/Find a Grave</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/descendants-fight-to-preserve-black-cemetery-behind-buckhead-condo/ZB57GY6QXRCGNLDB5MAPMIL4U4/">published a story about a Black cemetery</a> in Buckhead, a prosperous Atlanta community.</p>
<p>The cemetery broke ground almost two centuries ago, in 1826, as the graveyard of Piney Grove Baptist Church. The church has been gone for decades; the cemetery now sits on the property of a townhouse development. It is overgrown, with most of its 300-plus graves unmarked.</p>
<p>The article describes how some of the buried’s descendants and family members are trying to get the property owner to clean up and take care of the cemetery. </p>
<p>Audrey Collins is one of those descendants. Her grandmother, Lenora Powell Thomas, is buried there, and a photograph of her grandmother’s headstone accompanied the article.</p>
<p>The headstone is not one of those polished markers that you are probably used to seeing. It is small, perhaps 18 inches tall. It has a rough, poured concrete base with a plaster inset, which includes the name of the funeral home, the name of Collins’ grandmother and the date of her death. Her name reads, “Mrs. Lenora Thomas.” </p>
<p>Those first three letters – Mrs. – might be the most important on the headstone. </p>
<p>The courtesy titles Mr., Mrs. and Miss rarely appear on headstones; usually it is just the first and last name. </p>
<p>But here, they serve an important function, reminding viewers of how Black Americans came up with creative ways to retain their dignity and weather the dehumanizing effects of racism.</p>
<h2>Unworthy of honorifics</h2>
<p>In September 1951, the Savannah Tribune, a Black newspaper, <a href="https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn84020323/1951-09-27/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=01%2F01%2F1763&nottext=&date2=12%2F31%2F2023&words=house+lewd+operated+operating+operator&searchType=advanced&sequence=0&lccn=sn84020323&index=1&proxdistance=5&rows=12&ortext=&proxtext=&andtext=operating+a+lewd+house&page=1">complained about a couple of items</a> that had recently appeared in the white press.</p>
<p>One was a report of a white woman who was convicted of “operating and maintaining a lewd house.” The newspapers put “Mrs.” before her name. The second item was an announcement of the principals in the city’s “colored schools.” The names of the female principals were given without the courtesy titles of “Miss” or “Mrs.” The difference was literally Black and white.</p>
<p>When you hear about life in the Jim Crow South, you might think of segregated schools, city buses and lunch counters. </p>
<p>But subtler slights were part of everyday life. White Southerners refused to refer to African Americans with the courtesy titles Mr., Mrs. or Miss, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/10/opinion/sunday/white-newspapers-african-americans.html">depriving them of their dignity</a>. In the late 1970s, <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/education/benjamin-mays-ca-1894-1984/">Benjamin Mays</a>, president of Atlanta’s Morehouse College, <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820316970/living-atlanta/">recounted how</a> “‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’ and ‘Miss’ were signs of social equality. They didn’t call you that.” </p>
<p>This denial of Black dignity was pervasive. A 1935 study of 28 Southern white newspapers <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2292331">found none that used courtesy titles for Black Americans</a>. In a 1964 article, the Atlanta Daily World noted that <a href="https://www.proquest.com/hnpatlantadailyworld/docview/491308729/5951604249B14D6BPQ/17?accountid=11824">in the telephone book</a> “Miss” or “Mrs.” appeared before the names of white women; for Black women, it was just “Susie Smith” or “Jenny Davis.”</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Black and white mugshot photo of woman with short hair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531495/original/file-20230612-27-1zmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531495/original/file-20230612-27-1zmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531495/original/file-20230612-27-1zmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531495/original/file-20230612-27-1zmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531495/original/file-20230612-27-1zmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531495/original/file-20230612-27-1zmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531495/original/file-20230612-27-1zmtqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Civil rights activist Mary Hamilton was arrested in Jackson, Miss., in 1961 while participating in the Freedom Rides. Two years later, she would be arrested again – and held in contempt of court for refusing to respond to a lawyer who called her ‘Mary.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Miss_Mary_Hamillton_mugshot_1961.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Only in the 1960s did this begin to change. <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/11/30/567177501/when-miss-meant-so-much-more-how-one-woman-fought-alabama-and-won">Mary Hamilton</a>, a civil rights activist, was arrested at a demonstration in Gadsden, Alabama, in 1963. In the courtroom, the prosecutor asked her a question, addressing her as “Mary.” </p>
<p>“I won’t respond,” Hamilton said, “until you call me Miss Hamilton” – which is how he had been addressing white women on the stand. The judge ordered her to answer the question, and, when she refused, he sentenced her to a few days in jail for contempt of court. </p>
<p>Her appeal reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that <a href="https://www.proquest.com/hnpatlantaconstitution2/docview/1556878357/EEEA8E7745694E50PQ/1?accountid=11824">judges and lawyers do have to use “Miss” and other honorifics for Black witnesses</a>, just as they do for white people.</p>
<h2>Dignity in death</h2>
<p>In the 1940s, Black funeral directors in Atlanta came up with a way to combat this dehumanization: grave markers that anointed their dead with the courtesy titles that white society had denied them. </p>
<p>There <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/208154394/hattie-binyon">are</a> <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/69779193/leonard-fuller">hundreds</a> of <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115550887/woody-d-blountson">headstones</a> like Mrs. Thomas’ in <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/195981183/zebbie-bailey">older</a> <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/181934133/otha-swanson">Black cemeteries</a> in the Atlanta area. Most of those markers were made by <a href="https://oaklandcemetery.com/eldren-bailey-the-story-of-a-cemetery-artist/">Eldren Bailey</a>, an artist who worked in concrete and plaster. They are beautiful in their simplicity. And they all clearly say “Mr.,” “Mrs.” or “Miss.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531501/original/file-20230613-15-dg0cdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three photographs of three old gravestones taken at dusk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531501/original/file-20230613-15-dg0cdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531501/original/file-20230613-15-dg0cdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=198&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531501/original/file-20230613-15-dg0cdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=198&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531501/original/file-20230613-15-dg0cdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=198&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531501/original/file-20230613-15-dg0cdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531501/original/file-20230613-15-dg0cdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531501/original/file-20230613-15-dg0cdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tombstones for Mrs. Annie R. Summerour, Mr. Walter I. Summerour and Mr. Charlie Price in the graveyard of Mount Zion AME Church in Kennesaw, Ga.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David B. Parker</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These grave markers were sold as part of a funeral package, so they each bear the name of one of a dozen or so African American funeral homes in Atlanta: Hanley, Cox Brothers, Ivey Brothers, Haugabrooks, Sellers, Murdaugh and others. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674036215">One historian</a> noted that “black funeral directors not only regularly participated in the fight for racial equality but also made significant contributions to the cause.” That was certainly true of <a href="https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=186438">Geneva Haugabrooks</a>, who established the Haugabrooks Funeral Home in 1929. She was active in the <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/atlanta-negro-voters-league-anvl/">Atlanta Negro Voters League</a>, and she supported the <a href="https://negromotoristgreenbook.si.edu/compass/">Negro Motorist Green Book</a>. In 1953, <a href="https://www.proquest.com/hnpatlantadailyworld/docview/490999968/6EACB8A703E24AD9PQ/1?accountid=11824&parentSessionId=pNLzX56RIdYYlazg4PGQjbwYX3MhjRaF8pCdvfzUQoI%3D">the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP honored her</a> for “the valuable work she has done locally and nationally.”</p>
<p>I do not know who came up with the idea of using honorifics in these markers. Perhaps it was Mrs. Haugabrooks, whose funeral home appears on some of the oldest.</p>
<p>In any case, I believe they are worth preserving and remembering, as they restored, in death, a sense of dignity to people who had been denied it in life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David B. Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Tombstones that used the honorifics ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’ restored a sense of dignity to people who had been denied it in life.
David B. Parker, Professor of History, Kennesaw State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207000
2023-06-06T02:42:34Z
2023-06-06T02:42:34Z
Major new research claims smaller-brained ‘Homo naledi’ made rock art and buried the dead. But the evidence is lacking
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530232/original/file-20230606-23-klb0fr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=48%2C24%2C5306%2C2183&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On September 13 2013, speleologists Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker descended deep into South Africa’s Rising Star cave system and discovered the first evidence of an extraordinary assemblage of <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/hominid-and-hominin-whats-the-difference/">hominin</a> fossils. </p>
<p>To date, the remains of more than 15 individuals belonging to a previously unknown species of extinct human, dubbed <em>Homo naledi</em>, have been found in the cave. These short-statured, small-brained ancient cousins are thought to have lived in Southern Africa between 335,000 and 241,000 years ago.</p>
<p>Rising Star Cave is an exceptional resource for exploring the origins of our species. However, archaeological work at the site has been some of the <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/pieces-homo-naledi-story-continue-puzzle">most</a> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/27/lee-berger-digs-for-bones-and-glory">controversial</a> in the discipline.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.01.543127v1">Three</a> <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.01.543133v1">new</a> <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.01.543135v1">studies</a> made available today (as pre-prints awaiting peer review) claim to have found evidence <em>Homo naledi</em> intentionally buried their dead (a sophisticated practice we usually associate with <em>Homo sapiens</em>) and made rock art, which suggests advanced cognitive abilities. </p>
<p>However, as archaeologists who investigate early humans in Africa, we’re not convinced the new research stacks up.</p>
<h2>Did <em>Homo naledi</em> bury their dead?</h2>
<p>The research purports to have evidence <em>Homo naledi</em> undertook deliberate burial of their dead – a major claim. </p>
<p>So far, the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03457-8">earliest secure evidence</a> for burial in Africa comes from the Panga ya Saidi cave site in eastern Kenya, excavated by our team and dated to 78,000 years ago. This burial of a <em>Homo sapiens</em> child meets rigorous criteria agreed upon by the scientific community for identifying <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004724841100090X?casa_token=Ij7IJcdPIaoAAAAA:-oP3zX8NHW18oJetZcL9X494dJ4EkFBIoGdi8md-th8lFlFbcCDMwCt_pWFIXrcrxYZOIYsD">intentional human burial</a>.</p>
<p>The aim of the criteria is to help differentiate burial from other practices and phenomena that could lead to the depositing of human remains. These include, for example, the natural accumulation of skeletal parts in a predator’s cavern, or the kind of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20120919-respect-the-dead">carrying and protecting</a> of dead bodies observed among cognitively advanced non-human species such as gorillas and chimpanzees.</p>
<p>The claimed <em>Homo naledi</em> burials precede the Panga ya Saidi burial evidence by as much as 160,000 years. If the claim is correct, it significantly pushes back evidence for advanced mortuary behaviour in Africa. It also implies intentional burial wasn’t limited to our species or other big-brained hominins.</p>
<p>Such a finding would force us to rethink the role of brain size in advanced “meaning-making” cognition, as well as what distinguishes our species from our ancestors.</p>
<p>But is there actually evidence for funerary behaviour at Rising Star Cave? According to standards set by the palaeoanthropology community, the evidence presented so far indicates no.</p>
<h2>Insufficient evidence</h2>
<p>The site’s researchers <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.01.543127v1">claim to have evidence</a> for three intentional burials. </p>
<p>However, not one of the burials provides compelling evidence of a deliberately excavated pit. Indeed, the shallow cavities may not be dug pits at all, but natural depressions where the bodies accumulated and were later disturbed by trampling, or partial cave collapse. </p>
<p>The alleged burials also fail to meet another fundamental criteria for deliberate burials: anatomical alignment of the body and articulation of skeletal remains. </p>
<p>In a deliberate burial, the body is generally intact and any minimal displacement can be explained by decomposition. That’s because burial involves immediately covering the body with soil, which protects the anatomical integrity of the skeleton.</p>
<p>Rising Star Cave so far hasn’t produced evidence for anything other than the general spatial association of some skeletal elements. At most, it provides evidence for the in-situ decomposition of particular body parts, such as an ankle, and partial hand and foot articulations.</p>
<p>Moreover, confirming intentional burial in the past has required the presentation of human remains in an arrangement that can’t have been achieved by chance. However, the scattered distribution of the remains at Rising Star prevents reconstruction of their original positions.</p>
<p>Other claimed evidence for funerary behaviour is equally uncompelling. A stone artefact supposedly included in the burial as a “grave good” is said to have scratches and edge serrations from use. But this so-called artefact’s shape suggests it may be natural. It’s still encased in sediment and has only been studied through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchrotron_light_source">synchrotron X-ray</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530237/original/file-20230606-17-cso4oh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530237/original/file-20230606-17-cso4oh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530237/original/file-20230606-17-cso4oh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530237/original/file-20230606-17-cso4oh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530237/original/file-20230606-17-cso4oh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530237/original/file-20230606-17-cso4oh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530237/original/file-20230606-17-cso4oh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530237/original/file-20230606-17-cso4oh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The purported stone artefact (from synchrotron X-ray) showing so-called scratches and edge serrations may actually be a natural rock and not culturally modified.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lee Berger et al</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But perhaps the biggest barrier to confirming the status of the findings is that so far none of the alleged burials have been fully excavated. It’s therefore impossible to assess the completeness of the bodies, their original position, and the limits of the purported pits.</p>
<h2>Did <em>Homo naledi</em> make rock art?</h2>
<p>An equally splashy claim made in one of the publications is that <em>Homo naledi</em> left rock art on the walls of Rising Star Cave.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.01.543133v1">report</a> describes engravings in the form of deeply impressed cross-hatchings and geometric shapes such as squares, triangles, crosses and X’s. Further claims are made about the preparation of and potential repeated handling or rubbing of the associated rock surface, and the use of a similar “tool” to the one they claim was found with the alleged burial.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530224/original/file-20230606-27-9qrejq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530224/original/file-20230606-27-9qrejq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530224/original/file-20230606-27-9qrejq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530224/original/file-20230606-27-9qrejq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530224/original/file-20230606-27-9qrejq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530224/original/file-20230606-27-9qrejq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530224/original/file-20230606-27-9qrejq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530224/original/file-20230606-27-9qrejq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The researchers point to engravings in the wall as evidence of <em>Homo naledi’s</em> capability to create art and symbols. But these etchings haven’t been dated, and some of the lines look relatively recently etched.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.01.543133v1">Lee Berger et al</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This claim has major implications. To date, rock art has only reliably been linked to <em>Homo sapiens</em> and, in rarer cases, some of our large-brained ancestors. Similar to deliberate burial, producing rock art has major implications for the cognitive abilities of a species. It denotes a capacity for representation, and the creation and communication of meaning via abstract symbols. </p>
<p>The problem with the rock art at Rising Star Cave is that it’s undated. To imply any link with <em>Homo naledi</em> requires firm dates. This could be achieved through using dating techniques on associated residues or <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.abd4648">natural deposits</a> covering the art, or by studying materials from excavated and dated archaeological layers that can be linked to the art (for instance, if they contain engraving tools or engraved rock fall fragments).</p>
<p>In the absence of dating, it’s simply spurious to claim the engravings were made by <em>Homo naledi</em>, rather than by another species (and potentially at a much later date).</p>
<h2>Did <em>Homo naledi</em> light up Rising Star Cave?</h2>
<p>The researchers also claim the mortuary and engraving activities in Rising Star Cave involved strategic use of fire for illumination. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOtX_Bcs_F4&ab_channel=CarnegieScience">public lectures</a> and on social media they clarify they have found new evidence for hearths, including charcoal, ash, discoloured clay and burned animal bones. Yet none of the scientific research needed to confirm the use of fire has been carried out. Or if it has, it hasn’t been published.</p>
<p>Previously acquired radiocarbon dates obtained by the site investigators on the apparent hearth material provided <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOtX_Bcs_F4&ab_channel=CarnegieScience">very late dates</a> that distanced the hearths from the remains of <em>Homo naledi</em> by several hundred thousand years.</p>
<p>We’re not opposed to the idea that the Rising Star Cave witnessed precocious mortuary behaviour involving the intentional disposal of bodies by <em>Homo naledi</em>. But it’s clear the latest inferences require further investigation before they’re accepted by the broader scientific community.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-was-part-of-the-team-that-found-the-homo-naledi-childs-skull-how-we-did-it-171153">I was part of the team that found the Homo naledi child's skull: how we did it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Homo naledi had a brain less than half the size of our own. Yet the new research claims it had cognitive abilities far beyond what we might expect.
Michael Petraglia, Director, Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University
Emmanuel K. Ndiema, Senior Research Scientist, National Museums of Kenya
María Martinón-Torres, CENIEH Director, Atapuerca Research Team and author of "Homo imperfectus" (Ed. Destino), Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH)
Nicole Boivin, Professor, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/205987
2023-05-28T20:06:08Z
2023-05-28T20:06:08Z
Our cemeteries face a housing crisis too. 4 changes can make burial sustainable
<p>Australia’s housing crisis is no secret. What many people don’t realise is that there’s another, less visible housing crisis. Australia’s urban cemeteries are <a href="https://theconversation.com/housing-the-dead-what-happens-when-a-city-runs-out-of-space-70121">running out of space</a> to house the dead. </p>
<p>In Sydney, for example, a <a href="https://www.cemeteries.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-01/Statutory-Review-of-the-Cemeteries-Crematoria-Act.pdf">2020 report</a> found all of the city’s existing public cemeteries would be full by 2032. This will leave the communities they serve without a place to bury their dead. </p>
<p>We know how to solve this crisis. A few key changes can make Australia’s cemeteries more sustainable and viable for generations to come. </p>
<p>But these changes require political will to act. That’s because the solutions involve changes to the state-based laws that govern cemeteries. We can start with Victoria’s <a href="https://www.health.vic.gov.au/cemeteries-and-crematoria/cemeteries-and-crematoria-regulations-2015">Cemeteries and Crematoria Regulations 2015</a>, which must be updated by 2025.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/housing-the-dead-what-happens-when-a-city-runs-out-of-space-70121">Housing the dead: what happens when a city runs out of space?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Make renewable grave tenure the default option</h2>
<p>Most Australians <a href="https://theconversation.com/losing-the-plot-death-is-permanent-but-your-grave-isnt-33459">assume graves last forever</a>. This system of perpetual tenure is mandatory in Victoria and the ACT. It’s the (near-universal) default in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania. </p>
<p>But this system makes our burial space a “single use” resource. Overseas, perpetual tenure is the exception rather than the rule. Almost all <a href="https://www.talkdeath.com/cemetery-overcrowding-leading-europe-recycle-burial-plots/">European</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/lack-of-burial-space-is-changing-age-old-funeral-practices-and-in-japan-tree-burials-are-gaining-in-popularity-161323">East Asian countries</a> have limited tenure for burial, or actively encourage cremation. </p>
<p>Where grave renewal occurs in Australia, it happens a long time after burial, typically between 25 and 99 years. By this time, the physical remains of the grave’s previous occupant have significantly degraded. Any remnants are preserved in an ossuary or dug deeper into the soil. </p>
<p>Cemeteries in South Australia and Western Australia already have renewable grave tenure. Families have an option to extend tenure, should they wish to do so.</p>
<p>By making renewable tenure the default option across Australia, cemeteries will greatly increase future capacity. If all of Sydney’s public cemeteries adopted a 35-year renewable tenure system, for example, it has <a href="https://www.cemeteries.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-01/Statutory-Review-of-the-Cemeteries-Crematoria-Act.pdf">been estimated</a> the city’s burial needs over the next 99 years would require 38% less land. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zysuo1Pw-2w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">One of Perth’s major cemeteries is redeveloping existing burial grounds in response to running out of space.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/losing-the-plot-death-is-permanent-but-your-grave-isnt-33459">Losing the plot: death is permanent, but your grave isn't</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Create dedicated natural burial grounds</h2>
<p>One simple, more environmentally friendly option is “<a href="https://www.gmct.com.au/services/natural-burials">natural burial</a>”. Natural burial eschews embalming, caskets made from hardwood or metal, and monumental headstones. Instead, the body is buried in biodegradable materials, such as wicker or cardboard. </p>
<p>Green burial grounds are popular in the United Kingdom and Europe. They require less irrigation and maintenance. They also offer <a href="https://theecologist.org/2019/jan/14/case-natural-burial">a way to conserve natural woodlands</a> and so help foster biodiversity. </p>
<p>Some Australian cemeteries offer <a href="https://smct.org.au/murrun-naroon-natural-burials">natural burial as an option</a> next to traditional grave plots. There are, however, few dedicated natural burial grounds. Legislating natural burial grounds as distinct entities will allow specific regulations that give priority to regular grave renewal and positive environmental impact.</p>
<p>Natural burial grounds may also make “better neighbours” than traditional cemeteries if communities are going to be <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-23/sydney-is-running-out-of-burial-space/101881570">asked to live alongside new cemeteries</a>. Overcoming resistance to new cemetery developments is essential to secure future burial capacity. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Benches in a clearing of a green burial forest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527908/original/file-20230524-17-j7uknz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527908/original/file-20230524-17-j7uknz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527908/original/file-20230524-17-j7uknz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527908/original/file-20230524-17-j7uknz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527908/original/file-20230524-17-j7uknz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527908/original/file-20230524-17-j7uknz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527908/original/file-20230524-17-j7uknz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Green burial grounds like Waldfrieden, a burial forest in Germany, are popular in the United Kingdom and Europe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/buried-beneath-the-trees-a-plan-to-solve-our-shortage-of-cemetery-space-124259">Buried beneath the trees: a plan to solve our shortage of cemetery space</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Legalise alternative disposal methods</h2>
<p>We are all familiar with burial and cremation. But what about dissolving bodies in an alkaline solution – known as “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/could-water-cremation-become-the-new-american-way-of-death-180980479/">water cremation</a>” or “alkaline hydrolysis” – or transforming them into compost (“natural organic reduction”)? </p>
<p>These options have <a href="https://theconversation.com/life-after-death-americans-are-embracing-new-ways-to-leave-their-remains-85657">robust environmental credentials</a>. They require less space than burial, as they produce portable remains in the form of ashes or soil. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64140571">Several US states</a> now permit these options. </p>
<p>In most of Australia, these options exist in a legal grey area. In <a href="https://content.legislation.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-04/03-80aa034%20authorised_0.pdf">Victoria</a>, authorisation must be sought from the Department of Health to dispose of a body other than by burial or cremation. Queensland has no comprehensive cemeteries legislation, and thus no guidance on the legality of these alternatives. </p>
<p><a href="https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/pdf/asmade/sl-2011-568">New South Wales</a> legalised water cremation (but not natural organic reduction) in 2011. The state now has two such facilities. </p>
<p>Other states and territories should follow NSW in explicitly legalising viable alternative disposal methods. This will ease pressure on cemeteries and provide greater choice to families. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ashes-to-ashes-dust-to-compost-an-eco-friendly-burial-in-just-4-weeks-127794">Ashes to ashes, dust to ... compost? An eco-friendly burial in just 4 weeks</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Invest in cemeteries as multi-use green spaces</h2>
<p>Current regulatory frameworks emphasise the cemetery as a space of sombre reflection and remembrance. <a href="https://content.legislation.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-07/15-59sra003%20authorised.pdf">Victoria</a>, for example, prohibits a wide range of activities, including dancing, fishing and sport.</p>
<p>However, as <a href="https://www.acf.org.au/natural_solutions_needed_for_our_overheating_cities">green space becomes scarce</a> in Australia’s major cities, public opinion and current practices are falling out of alignment with such regulations. In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/visions-of-future-cemeteries-5-models-and-how-australians-feel-about-them-149150">recent national survey</a>, two-thirds of respondents disagreed with the sentiment that cemeteries were solely spaces for memorialisation. They supported the use of cemeteries as public green space. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/visions-of-future-cemeteries-5-models-and-how-australians-feel-about-them-149150">Visions of future cemeteries: 5 models and how Australians feel about them</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Historic cemeteries, where new burials and visits are rare, offer even greater potential as multi-use public space. In <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866722001418">cities overseas</a>, jogging, walking the dog and picnics are common in these cemeteries. </p>
<p>Australia is yet to feel the full effects of the impending crisis of cemetery space. While big changes are needed to avert this crisis, at least the path forward is clear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Gould has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council, through the Discovery Projects and the Linkage Projects schemes, with Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust as Linkage Project research partner.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Falconer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The communities of Australia’s biggest cities could soon face the prospect of having nowhere to bury their loved ones. Four key changes are needed to avert the crisis.
Kate Falconer, Lecturer, T.C. Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland
Hannah Gould, Research Fellow, Social And Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197221
2023-01-05T20:33:11Z
2023-01-05T20:33:11Z
DNA reveals large migration into Scandinavia during the Viking age
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503216/original/file-20230105-20-c8gnzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More people moved into Scandinavia in Viking times than at any other time period analysed in the study.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-wooden-viking-snekkja-longship-type-2044280747">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We often think of the Vikings as ultimate explorers, taking their culture with them to far-off lands. But we may not typically think of Viking age Scandinavia as a hub for migration from all over Europe.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)01468-4">In a study published in Cell</a>, we show this is exactly what happened. The Viking period (late 8th century to mid 11th century) was the catalyst for an exceptional inflow of people into Scandinavia. These movements were greater than for any other period we analysed.</p>
<p>What’s also striking is that later Scandinavians don’t show the same high levels of non-local ancestry present in their Viking-era counterparts. We don’t completely understand why the migrants’ genetic impact was reduced in later Scandinavians, but there are some possibilities.</p>
<p>We analysed genomes (the full complement of DNA contained in human cells) from around 17,000 Scandinavian individuals, including nearly 300 from ancient burials. We combined <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218308443">existing datasets</a> with new samples. These were analysed together in a dataset spanning 2,000 years.</p>
<p>We used these genomes to explore when people arrived in the region from outside and where they came from. New DNA samples were collected from several iconic Swedish archaeological sites. </p>
<p>These included Sandby borg, which is a “ring fortress” <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/moment-frozen-in-time-evidence-of-a-late-fifthcentury-massacre-at-sandby-borg/5C803B7E77A41439BC3B50D4BF96560E">where a massacre occurred just before 500 AD</a>, and the Vendel cemetery, which features several burials contained in large boats and dating to between the 6th and 8th centuries AD. We also used samples from Viking chamber burials and remains from Kronan, a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1095-9270.1990.tb00276.x">warship that capsized with more than 800 men</a> in 1676.</p>
<p>Two previous studies <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218308443">noted extensive migration</a> into Scandinavia <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2688-8">during the Viking age</a>. But in our latest study, we have clarified some of the details about this flow of genes into the region.</p>
<p>We found that movements of people from western Europe impacted all of Scandinavia, while migration from the east was more localised, with peaks in the Lake Mälaren Valley and Gotland. Finally, gene flow from southern Europe largely affected the south of Scandinavia. </p>
<p>Since the study was based on a 2,000-year chronology, it was not only possible to see there was an increase in migration during the Viking era, but also that it starts to fall with the onset of the medieval period.</p>
<p>The non-local ancestry that arrives in the region at this time falls away in later periods. Much of the genetic influence from eastern Europe disappears and the western and southern influence becomes significantly diluted. The best way to explain this is that people who arrived in Scandinavia during Viking times did not have as many children as the people who were already living there.</p>
<p>There are different possible reasons for this. The migrants could have belonged to groups that did not intend to settle down in Scandinavia, instead aiming to return to where they came from. Tradespeople and diplomats are examples in this category. Additionally, the migrants could also have belonged to groups that were not allowed to have families or children, such as slaves and priests.</p>
<p>We also looked at influences that began at earlier periods in time. For example, the DNA of modern Scandinavians <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41431-021-00899-6">changes gradually as you travel from north to south</a>. This genetic “cline”, or gradient, is due to migrations into the region of people carrying shared genetic similarities known as the Uralic component.</p>
<p>Modern examples of where the Uralic genetic component can be found are among Sami people, people in modern Finland, some Native Americans and some central Asian groups. </p>
<p>In our dataset, we found occasional instances of people with Uralic ancestry – mainly in northern Scandinavia – during the Viking period and medieval times. But the Uralic influence seems to increase after this time, since individuals from our 17th century sample have similar levels of this ancestry to people living today.</p>
<p>There were many other fascinating stories from our study. For example, at the Viking age burial site of Sala, by the river Sagån, we find a woman that seems to be fully British or Irish in her genomic composition. This woman was buried in a prestigious Viking period boat burial. We don’t know exactly what position she held in society, but she would not have been a slave or a priest. </p>
<p>Among the individuals found on the wreck of the Kronan, there were two people who came from what is now Finland and another who has a genetic affinity with people from the Baltic states, such as Lithuania and Latvia (though this identification is not conclusive). At the time of the Kronan incident in 1676, these areas were part of the Swedish Empire, though they are independent today.</p>
<p>The work sheds more light on the historical events that shaped the populations of Scandinavia over time. The Viking age was marked by Scandinavians’ curiosity of the world outside their home region. But, from our results, it also appears that the world outside this region was curious enough about the Vikings to travel to Scandinavia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197221/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anders Götherström receives funding from VR, KVA, and EU. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ricardo Rodriguez Varela does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
DNA analysis reveals a large migration of people into Scandinavia during Viking times.
Anders Götherström, Professor in Molecular Archaeology, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University
Ricardo Rodriguez Varela, Research in Molecular Archaeology, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188456
2022-10-28T01:11:10Z
2022-10-28T01:11:10Z
Coffin? Casket? Cremation? How to make your death more environmentally friendly
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491536/original/file-20221025-156-2serq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=45%2C36%2C6045%2C3387&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We can all agree humans need to reduce their impact on the environment. And while most of us think of this in terms of daily activities – such as eating less meat, or being water-wise – this responsibility actually extends beyond life and into death. </p>
<p>The global population is closing on <a href="https://www.un.org/en/un-chronicle/global-population-will-soon-reach-8-billion-then-what">eight billion</a>, and the amount of land available for human burial is <a href="https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/deal-with-the-dead/">running out</a>, especially in small and densely populated countries. </p>
<p>To minimise environmental impact, human bodies should return to nature as quickly as possible. But the rate of decay in some of the most common traditional disposal methods is very slow. It can take <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-long-it-takes-human-body-decompose-grave-coffin-2019-8">several decades</a> for a body to decompose. </p>
<p>In a one-of-its-kind study, our team analysed <a href="https://irispublishers.com/gjfsm/fulltext/a-taphonomic-examination-of-inhumed-and-entombed-remains-in-parma-cemeteries-italy.ID.000518.php">408 human bodies</a> exhumed from grave pits and stone tombs in the north of Italy to find out what conditions help speed up decay.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488716/original/file-20221007-21261-h17m5t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488716/original/file-20221007-21261-h17m5t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488716/original/file-20221007-21261-h17m5t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488716/original/file-20221007-21261-h17m5t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488716/original/file-20221007-21261-h17m5t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488716/original/file-20221007-21261-h17m5t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488716/original/file-20221007-21261-h17m5t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488716/original/file-20221007-21261-h17m5t.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We conducted research on bodies exhumed from the La Villetta cemetery in Parma, Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Edda Guareschi</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The environmental cost of traditional burials</h2>
<p>Funeral rituals should respect the dead, bring closure to families and promote the reaching of the afterlife in accordance with people’s beliefs. This looks different for different people. Although the Catholic church has allowed cremation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/world/europe/vatican-bans-scattering-of-human-ashes.html">since 1963</a>, it still prefers burials. Muslims are always supposed to be buried, while most Hindus are cremated.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indians-are-forced-to-change-rituals-for-their-dead-as-covid-19-rages-through-cities-and-villages-160076">Indians are forced to change rituals for their dead as COVID-19 rages through cities and villages</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In Australia, however, the latest census revealed almost 40% of the population identifies as “<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-religion-is-australias-second-largest-religious-group-and-its-having-a-profound-effect-on-our-laws-185697">not religious</a>”. This opens up more avenues for how people’s bodies may be handled after death.</p>
<p>Most traditional burial practices in industrialised countries have several long-lasting harmful <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/108132/EUR_ICP_EHNA_01_04_01%28A%29.pdf">effects</a> on the environment. Wood and metal fragments in coffins and caskets remain in the ground, leaching harmful chemicals through paint, preservatives and alloys. Chemicals used for embalming also remain in the ground and can <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3315260/">contaminate</a> soil and waterways.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488208/original/file-20221005-26-nf21yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488208/original/file-20221005-26-nf21yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488208/original/file-20221005-26-nf21yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488208/original/file-20221005-26-nf21yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488208/original/file-20221005-26-nf21yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488208/original/file-20221005-26-nf21yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488208/original/file-20221005-26-nf21yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488208/original/file-20221005-26-nf21yo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Caskets made out of processed materials like metal and wood are bad for the environment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cremation also has a large <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/is-cremation-environmentally-friendly-heres-the-science">carbon footprint</a>. It requires lots of trees for fuel and produces millions of tons of carbon dioxide each year, as well as toxic volatile compounds.</p>
<p>There are several alternatives to traditional burials. These include “water cremation” or “resomation” (where the body is rapidly dissolved), human <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-26/body-composting-a-green-alternative-to-burial-cremation/100486964">composting</a>, mummification, cryonics (freezing and storage), <a href="https://eirene.ca/blog/space-burial-ashes-in-orbit">space burials</a>, and even turning the body into <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/03/world/eco-solutions-capsula-mundi/index.html">trees</a> or the ashes into <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/ashes-to-diamonds-reefs-rockets-how-we-will-memorialize-dead">diamonds</a> or <a href="https://www.andvinyly.com/">record vinyls</a>.</p>
<p>However, many of these alternatives are either illegal, unavailable, costly or not aligned with people’s beliefs. The vast majority choose coffin burials, and all countries accept this method. So the question of sustainable burials comes down to choosing between the many types of <a href="https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/death-the-last-taboo/burial-coffins-and-caskets/?gclid=CjwKCAjwx7GYBhB7EiwA0d8oe-mOKjLns2Gj5mpj-mu_kskmPPCKjhOqUrUAEjC05D4pnSXyBP3xrhoCE9oQAvD_BwE">coffins available</a>. </p>
<h2>What leads to faster decomposition?</h2>
<p>Coffins range from traditional wooden caskets, to cardboard coffins, to natural coffins made from willow, banana leaf or bamboo, which decompose faster. </p>
<p>The most environmentally sustainable choice is one that allows the body to decompose and reduce to a skeleton (or “skeletonise”) quickly – possibly in just a few years.</p>
<p>Our research has presented three key findings on conditions that promote the skeletonisation of human bodies.</p>
<p>First, it has confirmed that bodies disposed in traditionally sealed tombs (where a coffin is placed inside a stone space) can take more than 40 years to skeletonise. </p>
<p>In these sealed tombs, bacteria rapidly consume the oxygen in the stone space where the coffin is placed. This creates a micro-environment that promotes an almost indefinite preservation of the body. </p>
<p>We also found burial grounds with a high percentage of sand and gravel in the soil promote the decomposition and skeletonisation of bodies in less than ten years – even if they are in a coffin. </p>
<p>That’s because this soil composition allows more circulation of air and microfauna, and ample water drainage – all of which are helpful for degrading organic matter. </p>
<p>Finally, our research confirmed previous suspicions about the slow decomposition of entombed bodies. We discovered placing bodies inside stone tombs, or covering them with a stone slab on the ground, helps with the formation of corpse wax (or “<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33596512/">adipocere</a>”).</p>
<p>This substance is the final result of several chemical reactions through which the body’s adipose (fat) tissues turn to a “soapy” substance that’s very resistant to further degradation. Having corpse wax slows down (if not completely arrests) the decomposition process. </p>
<h2>A new, greener option</h2>
<p>In looking for innovative burial solutions, we had the opportunity to experiment with a new type of body disposal in a tomb called an “<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2673-6756/2/3/37">aerated tomb</a>”.</p>
<p>Over the past 20 years aerated tombs have been developed in some European countries including France, Spain and Italy (where they <a href="https://www.tecnofar-solutions.com/prodotti/sistema-aerato-loculi">have</a> <a href="https://www.argema.net/loculi-aerati/">been</a> <a href="https://www.ala-strutture-cimiteriali.com/loculi-aerati">commercialised</a>). They allow plenty of ventilation, which in turn enables a more hygienic and faster decomposition of bodies compared to traditional tombs.</p>
<p>They have a few notable features:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>an activated carbon filter purifies gases</p></li>
<li><p>fluids are absorbed by two distinct biodegrading biological powders, one placed at the bottom of the coffin and the other in a collecting tray beneath it</p></li>
<li><p>once the body has decomposed, the skeletal remains can be moved to an ossuary (a site where skeletal remains are stored), while the tomb can be dismantled and most of its components potentially recycled.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488204/original/file-20221005-26-o8c3fm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An ossuary is full of skeletal remains forming a pillar and lining the walls – with a large white cross in the centre of a back wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488204/original/file-20221005-26-o8c3fm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488204/original/file-20221005-26-o8c3fm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488204/original/file-20221005-26-o8c3fm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488204/original/file-20221005-26-o8c3fm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488204/original/file-20221005-26-o8c3fm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488204/original/file-20221005-26-o8c3fm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488204/original/file-20221005-26-o8c3fm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arguably one of the world’s most famous ossuaries, the Paris Catacombs is an underground labyrinth containing the remains of more than six million people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Aerated tombs are also cheaper than ordinary tombs and can be built from existing tombs. They would be simple to use in Australia and would comply with public health and hygiene standards.</p>
<p>Most of us don’t spend much time thinking about what will happen to our bodies after we die. Perhaps we should. In the end this may be one of our most important last decisions – the implications of which extend to our precious planet.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/most-americans-today-are-choosing-cremation-heres-why-burials-are-becoming-less-common-186618">Most Americans today are choosing cremation – here's why burials are becoming less common</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188456/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Burial land is running low in certain parts of the world. It’s about time we started to consider the environmental cost of our final resting place.
Paola A. Magni, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science, Murdoch University
Edda Guareschi, Adjunct Lecturer in Forensic Sciences, Murdoch University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180070
2022-05-20T12:13:35Z
2022-05-20T12:13:35Z
The US Civil War drastically reshaped how Americans deal with death – will the pandemic?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464089/original/file-20220518-23-b5e9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C35%2C5964%2C3943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An art installation by Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg in remembrance of Americans who have died of COVID-19, near the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakBidenFuneralAssistance/5b587173d76b4be8ab21b5cfba95e5cd/photo?Query=%22in%20america:%20remember%22&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=108&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Brynn Anderson</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2022/how-many-people-died-covid-united-states-1-million-graphic/">1 million people living in the United States</a> have died of COVID-19 during the past two years.</p>
<p>The numbers paint a clear picture of devastation, though they can’t capture the individual and familial pain of losing loved ones – which will no doubt transform many more millions of Americans’ lives.</p>
<p>The impact of this mass death on American society as a whole is less clear, especially since the pandemic is not over. While there have been a few moments of public remembrance – 700,000 white flags <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/covid-19-white-flag-memorial-installation-comes-to-an-end-on-national-mall/2820218/">placed on the National Mall</a>, and President Joe Biden’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/12/statement-from-president-joe-biden-marking-one-million-american-lives-lost-to-covid-19/">brief words</a> noting the “one million empty chairs around the dinner table” – the country is only beginning to grapple with the shared grief of so many deaths.</p>
<p>Instead, there is public discord surrounding those who died. In a country divided over basic facts about the virus, deaths have been exploited for political purposes, or <a href="https://khn.org/news/how-covid-death-counts-become-the-stuff-of-conspiracy-theories/">wrapped into conspiracy theories</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://religion.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/laderman-gary.html">a scholar</a> of religion who has studied <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rest-in-peace-9780195183559?q=rest%20in%20peace&lang=en&cc=us">the history of death in America</a>, I am quite preoccupied with how the country makes sense of, honors and remembers the COVID-19 dead. The magnitude of death today immediately brings to my mind the event that killed the second-highest number of Americans: the Civil War.</p>
<p>My first book, “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078688/sacred-remains/">The Sacred Remains</a>,” looked at the conflict’s impact on Americans’ attitudes toward death, during another period of extreme division and overwhelming loss of life.</p>
<h2>Preserving the dead</h2>
<p>Roughly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html">750,000 people</a> died in the Civil War, or <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/statistics-civil-war">2.5% of the country’s population</a> at the time – the equivalent of 7 million Americans dying today.</p>
<p>The unprecedented death toll had profound consequences on American cultures of death for generations, particularly through the emergence of the funeral industry.</p>
<p>Throughout the 19th century, most Americans died, and had their bodies tended to, at home. Last moments with the corpse were with loved ones, who were responsible for washing and preparing it for the final rituals before burial, generally in local churchyards.</p>
<p>But the Civil War provided an opportunity for <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078688/sacred-remains/">a game-changing development</a>. <a href="https://www.civilwarmed.org/embalming1/">Embalming</a> was an innovative method of preserving bodies that allowed some Northern families to have their war dead retrieved from the mostly Southern battlefields and brought back to be buried in Northern soil.</p>
<p>The display of President Abraham Lincoln’s embalmed body after his assassination was <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-lincolns-embrace-of-embalming-birthed-the-american-funeral-industry-86196">a pivotal moment</a> in this transformation. His corpse was transported on a train from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Illinois, with frequent stops in many Northern cities where it was put on display for grieving Americans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white illustration shows a line of people paying respects at a funeral." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464103/original/file-20220518-19-ixh8mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464103/original/file-20220518-19-ixh8mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464103/original/file-20220518-19-ixh8mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464103/original/file-20220518-19-ixh8mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464103/original/file-20220518-19-ixh8mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464103/original/file-20220518-19-ixh8mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464103/original/file-20220518-19-ixh8mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A drawing depicts Americans viewing Abraham Lincoln’s body at City Hall in New York City in 1865.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/abraham-lincolns-funeral-1865-citizens-viewing-the-body-at-news-photo/517479796?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As embalming became more common, it helped legitimize a new class of professional experts: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183559.001.0001">funeral directors</a>, whose homes became a mix of business, mortality, religion and their own domestic life. By the early 20th century, this new business had established a fairly standard American way of death, centered on the viewing of an embalmed body to bring a community together.</p>
<p>Americans’ relationship to their dead would never be the same. The intimacies the living had with the dead before the Civil War gradually disappeared, as funeral homes managed the care of more and more bodies.</p>
<h2>Meaning-making</h2>
<p>One of my intellectual heroes, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/713685991">sociologist Robert Hertz</a>, wrote <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Death-and-the-right-hand/Hertz/p/book/9780415489072">a famous essay</a> about death and society in 1907. He argued that social groups represent themselves as immortal, capable of overcoming the death of any member. The community’s survival depends greatly on transcending death, so it transforms the dead into sacred symbols of group identity and social cohesion.</p>
<p>Hertz’s studies focused on death in small societies in Borneo. Yet his exploration of the relationship between the death of the individual and the life of the social group is pertinent now, in the context of the pandemic – as it was in the aftermath of the Civil War.</p>
<p>The victorious Union turned dead soldiers into symbols of the nation. Their deaths were seen as sacred sacrifices to preserve the country. For religion scholars, this is a clear example of <a href="http://www.robertbellah.com/articles_5.htm">American civil religion</a>. In the U.S., civil religion is a patriotic culture that sees America as a sacred, exceptional country, built on shared ideals, myths and traditions.</p>
<p>But the Northern victors did not “control the narrative,” as we say these days. Indeed, a very striking and still-present counternarrative soon developed among the vanquished Confederates after the war. The losers built an alternative civil religious culture, what historians refer to as “<a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820334257/baptized-in-blood/">the religion of the Lost Cause</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Women in white dresses and skirts stand in front of a war monument in a black and white photograph." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464114/original/file-20220518-17-9khcs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464114/original/file-20220518-17-9khcs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464114/original/file-20220518-17-9khcs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464114/original/file-20220518-17-9khcs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464114/original/file-20220518-17-9khcs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464114/original/file-20220518-17-9khcs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464114/original/file-20220518-17-9khcs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Daughters of the Confederacy unveil the ‘Southern Cross’ monument at Arlington, Va., in 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/arlington-va-daughters-of-the-confederacy-unveiling-the-news-photo/515947348?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For many white Southerners, the battlefield dead did not signal God had abandoned their cause but rather illuminated his support for <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/lost-cause-religion/#:%7E:text=Historians%20refer%20to%20this%20as,the%20Virginia%20journalist%20Edward%20A">values associated with the Confederacy</a> – values the United States is still grappling with today. They saw the loss as a temporary setback, but believed that ultimate victory would come if they maintained some form of Southern cultural purity based on notions of racial, regional and religious superiority.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>The politicization of death is not uncommon in American history, particularly during times of profound social crisis. And since the start of the pandemic, the same has happened with COVID-19 victims. </p>
<p>Death during a pandemic is obviously different from death during a civil war. In both cases, however, it is difficult for a divided country to experience unity in the face of an enormous loss of life and to agree on what those deaths mean for the nation.</p>
<p>Unique aspects of the pandemic make national mourning, and united healing, even more complicated. For example, the virus has not taken an equal toll across the country. The death toll shows <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-is-hitting-black-and-poor-communities-the-hardest-underscoring-fault-lines-in-access-and-care-for-those-on-margins-135615">significant disparities</a> among different economic and racial groups. And the need to prevent contagion has intensified the physical separation between the living and the dead, making some meaningful rites of mourning <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pandemic-changed-death-rituals-and-left-grieving-families-without-a-sense-of-closure-175302">difficult or impossible</a>.</p>
<p>Many communities have made efforts to commemorate the pain of the pandemic, such as through <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/01/929938826/for-d-a-de-los-muertos-remembering-those-lost-to-the-coronavirus">Dia de los Muertos</a>, a Mexican holiday honoring those who have died. But there have been minimal efforts to help make sense of the deaths on a national level: to rally around a compelling public narrative about the tremendous loss of life and grief. It remains to be seen if Americans will eventually incorporate the losses into a unifying civil religion, or only use them to reinforce polarization.</p>
<p>One million dead and counting will certainly require more efforts, more reflection and more soul-searching to help American society overcome and indeed draw strength from <a href="https://theconversation.com/brains-are-bad-at-big-numbers-making-it-impossible-to-grasp-what-a-million-covid-19-deaths-really-means-179081">this unimaginable number</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gary Laderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Civil War – the second-most-deadly event in US history, just behind COVID-19 –contributed to lasting changes in how Americans care for the dead.
Gary Laderman, Goodrich C White Professor of Religion, Emory University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/174575
2022-04-12T13:21:29Z
2022-04-12T13:21:29Z
Archaeological site along the Nile opens a window on the Nubian civilization that flourished in ancient Sudan
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457490/original/file-20220411-14-3o5xce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=85%2C0%2C1839%2C1111&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thousands of years ago, people in this part of Sudan used underground tombs to bury their dead.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michele R. Buzon</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Circular mounds of rocks dot the desert landscape at the archaeological site of <a href="http://www.tombos.org">Tombos</a> in northern Sudan. They reveal tumuli – the underground burial tombs used at least as far back as 2500 B.C. by ancient inhabitants who called this region <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11464948/Pastoral_States_Toward_a_Comparative_Archaeology_of_Early_Kush">Kush or Nubia</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444345940.ch4">As a bioarchaeologist</a> who excavates and analyzes human skeletal remains along with their related grave goods, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LiRCKv8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I’ve been working</a> at Tombos for more than 20 years.</p>
<iframe id="vBA2K" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vBA2K/" height="400" width="100%" style="border: none; height: 500px;width:320px;float:right;clear:both;margin-left:15px;margin-right:15px" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p>Discussions about ancient history in Africa are dominated by the rise of Egypt. But there were several societies that rose to great power in the Nile River Valley since the middle of the third millennium B.C., including this often overshadowed neighbor to Egypt’s south. Even though ancient Kush rivaled and, at times, conquered Egypt, there’s been a relative <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190496272.013.2">lack of modern attention</a> paid to this civilization. Early 20th century research expanded scholars’ understandings of ancient Kush, but the interpretations had <a href="https://youtu.be/dRL6EDWfqMs">colonial and racist biases</a> that often obscured this civilization’s strengths and achievements.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456906/original/file-20220407-20-dfw5kx.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456906/original/file-20220407-20-dfw5kx.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456906/original/file-20220407-20-dfw5kx.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456906/original/file-20220407-20-dfw5kx.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456906/original/file-20220407-20-dfw5kx.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456906/original/file-20220407-20-dfw5kx.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456906/original/file-20220407-20-dfw5kx.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456906/original/file-20220407-20-dfw5kx.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Along its length, the Nile has six cataracts – rocky places with shallow, fast moving water. Tombos is at the Third Cataract.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michele R. Buzon</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michele-Buzon">I’m co-director</a>, with <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ukoSn9kAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Stuart Tyson Smith</a>, of the excavations at Tombos. These burials tell our archaeological team about many aspects of life and death in this place millennia ago. Just like those living along the Nile River today, ancient people dealt with various challenges including environmental changes, sociopolitical transitions and interactions with other groups. Equally important to our discoveries about the past is sharing our findings with the local community and supporting Sudanese who want to pursue archaeology careers.</p>
<h2>Illuminating life and death at Tombos</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456900/original/file-20220407-24-1x6h51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a tarp shades people working in a rectangular trench cut out of sandy dirt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456900/original/file-20220407-24-1x6h51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456900/original/file-20220407-24-1x6h51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456900/original/file-20220407-24-1x6h51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456900/original/file-20220407-24-1x6h51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456900/original/file-20220407-24-1x6h51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456900/original/file-20220407-24-1x6h51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456900/original/file-20220407-24-1x6h51.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the research team looking for subterranean structures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stuart Tyson Smith</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The remains of the ancient inhabitants of Tombos reveal information about their <a href="https://doi.org/10.5744/bi.2017.1000">physical activity</a>, as well as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpp.2014.05.002">infection and nutrition</a>. Conditions such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpp.2014.03.003">heart disease</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0090924">cancer</a> and the <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-02544-1">effects of hard labor</a> all leave marks on the human body that provide insights into the epidemiology of disease in the past. They help us trace the factors that play a role in health conditions and their social context. For example, we’ve found the remains of an adult woman and child who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpp.2019.07.006">lived with a growth disorder</a>, which shows that people with physical differences were incorporated into society.</p>
<p>By analyzing the isotopes, or forms of chemical elements, incorporated into inhabitants’ teeth, we’re able to piece together <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.22235">where they may have lived during childhood</a>.</p>
<p>As the team uncovers what lies <a href="https://youtu.be/vl_BJgYSPSo">beneath the ground</a>, we learn about individual <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12524">ancient community members</a>. For instance, we’ve found the remains of an older woman who lived into her 60s and experienced arthritis, a younger woman whose burial included a baby, and a middle-aged woman with a basket full of whole and broken small figurines, beads and other items. Discovering people who apparently lived different kinds of lives lets our team create a picture of who populated Tombos when it was thriving.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456904/original/file-20220407-14-74mpqh.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Scientists excavate an underground tomb" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456904/original/file-20220407-14-74mpqh.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456904/original/file-20220407-14-74mpqh.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456904/original/file-20220407-14-74mpqh.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456904/original/file-20220407-14-74mpqh.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456904/original/file-20220407-14-74mpqh.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456904/original/file-20220407-14-74mpqh.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456904/original/file-20220407-14-74mpqh.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research team members excavating a tumulus burial structure.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michele R. Buzon</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The tomb structures show us how people wanted to represent themselves and their families publicly after death. We can link body position and the artifacts accompanying the burials to different cultural and religious practices. One well-provisioned <a href="https://issuu.com/sudarchrs/docs/s_n11_smith">burial of a middle-aged man</a> included both a bed and coffin, combining traditional Nubian and Egyptian practices. The tomb also contained bronze bowls, a decorated wooden box, a pile of amulets that were treated as magical objects and a cache of iron weapons, which demonstrate early iron use in Nubia.</p>
<p>We’ve found that when Egyptians ruled Nubians during the New Kingdom empire around 1200 B.C., some immigrant Egyptians and local people selected Egyptian-style pyramid and chamber tombs for their burials. At the same time, some people at Tombos also used the <a href="https://tombos.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Nile-Magazine-No.-13-Apr-May-2018-Tombos_PDF.pdf">local tumulus tomb structure</a> similar to earlier graves in Nubia, showing how much people varied in their choices about burial.</p>
<h2>Involving today’s inhabitants with finds from the past</h2>
<p>Our archaeological team’s ability to successfully build a picture of people from the past relies on active and close engagement with the local community. Our interactions with town residents – through archaeological work, casual conversations over tea and formal presentations of our findings – have shown us that they are proud of the region’s ancient people and wish for themselves and others to know more about them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453454/original/file-20220321-14965-1dl1j4r.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Seven women stand together in a tree's shade" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453454/original/file-20220321-14965-1dl1j4r.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453454/original/file-20220321-14965-1dl1j4r.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453454/original/file-20220321-14965-1dl1j4r.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453454/original/file-20220321-14965-1dl1j4r.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453454/original/file-20220321-14965-1dl1j4r.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453454/original/file-20220321-14965-1dl1j4r.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453454/original/file-20220321-14965-1dl1j4r.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The archaeological team prioritizes sharing their findings with the local community, particularly the women, who are less likely to work at the site as laborers. The author is third from the right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michele R. Buzon</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A recent lecture and discussion that my Sudanese colleague, Remah Abdelrahim Kabashi Ahmed, and I held for the women of Tombos showed us how curious they are about the past as well as the present. Remah, who is training in bioarchaeology, and I answered questions such as: What kind of medicine did people use then? How old was the baby at death? Why did people put a bed and jewelry in their tomb? They notice the use of beds in ancient burials that look similar to those carved in recent times. They ask if we as women find the work physically difficult.</p>
<p>Importantly, they tell us that they want more presentations because their male family members who work at the archaeological site with us don’t share with them what we’ve found. As a result, we’ve expanded our outreach in many ways, including by collaborating with the local schools to produce some <a href="https://tombos.org/educational-posters-2/">teaching materials</a> about archaeology, local history and Tombos site findings. We also hosted a teacher and her students on a <a href="https://tombos.org/conversations-with-local-people-in-tombos-by-tomomi-fushiya/">tour of the site</a> to see our open excavations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453455/original/file-20220321-25-kxu7rn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="people cluster around a pit in an arid landscape" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453455/original/file-20220321-25-kxu7rn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453455/original/file-20220321-25-kxu7rn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453455/original/file-20220321-25-kxu7rn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453455/original/file-20220321-25-kxu7rn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453455/original/file-20220321-25-kxu7rn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453455/original/file-20220321-25-kxu7rn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453455/original/file-20220321-25-kxu7rn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A tour of the site by a fifth-grade class is part of the archaeologists’ outreach to the local community.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michele Buzon</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We work closely with the Sudanese administrative body that oversees archaeological research, the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums. But this is not enough. It’s important for foreign researchers to study the past in collaboration with partners from the community and Sudanese academic colleagues. These partnerships are vital steps in working together to create new knowledge about the region’s ancient history and improve upon the exclusionary and racist perspectives of earlier researchers.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456901/original/file-20220407-20-i4bczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man stands in deep rectangular hole cut from dusty dirt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456901/original/file-20220407-20-i4bczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456901/original/file-20220407-20-i4bczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456901/original/file-20220407-20-i4bczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456901/original/file-20220407-20-i4bczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456901/original/file-20220407-20-i4bczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456901/original/file-20220407-20-i4bczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456901/original/file-20220407-20-i4bczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mohamed Faroug Ali in a stone-lined tomb structure.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stuart Tyson Smith</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tombos team member Mohamed Faroug Ali, a Sudanese archaeologist at International University of Africa in Khartoum, led the creation of the <a href="http://www.amsarc.org">American Sudanese Archaeological Research Center</a>, with the goal of encouraging international research and collaboration in Sudan. We’ve run virtual lectures and provided scholarships for Sudanese students pursuing degrees in archaeology. We’re working toward developing a degree program at the International University of Africa.</p>
<p>Our goal is to support training Sudanese so local people – with more direct connections to the ancient civilization we’re studying – can participate in these archaeological projects at all levels. Promoting and practicing ethical research that includes the people who live in the area today is as important to the Tombos team as learning more about the lives of the ancient inhabitants.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=science&source=inline-science-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174575/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michele R. Buzon receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. The Sudan National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums permits her archaeological research and related activities. She is a founding member and Treasurer of the American Sudanese Archaeological Research Center.</span></em></p>
Promoting and practicing ethical research that includes the people who live in the area today is as important to the archaeological team as learning more about the lives of the ancient inhabitants.
Michele R. Buzon, Professor of Anthropology, Purdue University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/167497
2021-10-26T14:20:08Z
2021-10-26T14:20:08Z
Somalia and COVID-19: how we used satellite data to track the toll of the pandemic
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419894/original/file-20210907-21-mmgflv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Medical workers carry the body of a COVID-19 patient at Martini Hospital in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Xinhua/Hassan Bashi via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been well documented in high-income countries, much less is known about its impact on low-income and conflict-affected countries where there are significant challenges in information generation and dissemination.</p>
<p>Somalia is one of these countries. It has been battered by a series of large-scale <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22380352">humanitarian emergencies</a>, <a href="https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2017/08/continued-measles-spread-somalia-crisis-prompts-who-call-donor-support">epidemics</a> and <a href="https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/media/40136">population displacements</a>. These crises were exacerbated, in large part, by three decades of protracted conflict.</p>
<p>But knowing the scale of the impact of COVID-19 is virtually impossible.</p>
<p>Along with other colleagues from the <a href="https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/">London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine</a>, the Somali Disaster Resilience Institute and <a href="https://www.hdruk.ac.uk/case-studies/impact-of-the-pandemic-on-somalia/">Satellite Applications Catapult</a>, we <a href="https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(21)00758-X/fulltext">conducted a study</a> to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Somalia. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://moh.gov.so/en/covid19/">official</a> figure stood at just over 1,100 deaths as of October this year. But media reports and investigative enquiries of NGOS <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/somali-medics-report-rapid-rise-in-deaths-as-covid-19-fears-grow">point</a> to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-53521563">larger</a> numbers of potential COVID-19 deaths. This suggests that the official data may not capture the full picture of the true burden of COVID-19.</p>
<h2>Collecting data</h2>
<p>The challenge is getting data in a fragile, crisis-affected context. </p>
<p>We overcame this by using commercially available high-resolution satellite data, obtained from <a href="https://www.maxar.com/products/satellite-imagery">Maxar</a>, to count the number of burials in Mogadishu’s Banadir region between January 2017 and September 2020. The Banadir region is on the edge of the city and is home to about 2 million residents.</p>
<p>We compared the number of burials we could count prior to COVID-19 with those between January and September 2020.</p>
<p>We also surveyed key informants to verify what the satellites were showing – in terms of burials – and understand community perceptions of COVID-19 mortality and the challenges associated with controlling the pandemic. </p>
<p>Based on the number of burials we could identify, our analysis found a substantial increase in the burial rate during the COVID-19 period. </p>
<p>Applying this rate to the population of Banadir allowed us to produce a death toll. We repeated this process for burials identified by satellite imagery in the pre-COVID-19 time period, which allowed us to calculate a baseline death toll. The difference between these two figures – which we called the excess death toll – suggested there had been a massive under-reporting of deaths. </p>
<p>Using satellite imagery like this is a novel way to identify how many deaths could be attributable to the pandemic. It’s a promising tool that can be used in resource-constrained settings, where on-the-ground research is a challenge, and where people remain vulnerable to renewed waves and new variants.</p>
<h2>Excess death</h2>
<p>For the satellite data we worked on the assumption that all decedents in Banadir are buried in recognised cemeteries. We then sought to identify and collect data on every cemetery that was “active” (receiving new burials) at any point during the analysis period.</p>
<p>Overall, 68 sequential satellite images were available across the six analysed cemeteries, an average of 11 images per cemetery. We were able to perform an exhaustive grave count for 58.8% (40/68) of images. This was mostly because some images weren’t clear enough to identify graves, or because the view was obstructed by vegetation. We had to rely on satellite data retrospectively collected by Maxar, thus limiting the number of usable data points. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419954/original/file-20210908-24-1tg0c9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419954/original/file-20210908-24-1tg0c9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419954/original/file-20210908-24-1tg0c9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419954/original/file-20210908-24-1tg0c9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419954/original/file-20210908-24-1tg0c9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419954/original/file-20210908-24-1tg0c9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419954/original/file-20210908-24-1tg0c9k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All the cemeteries in the region.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For eight images (11.7%) we analysed only the visible area and created a model to predict the missing grave observations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419961/original/file-20210908-13-2fdagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419961/original/file-20210908-13-2fdagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419961/original/file-20210908-13-2fdagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419961/original/file-20210908-13-2fdagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419961/original/file-20210908-13-2fdagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419961/original/file-20210908-13-2fdagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419961/original/file-20210908-13-2fdagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sample of very high-resolution images from two cemeteries in Banadir, exemplifying the two typologies or burial pattern observed: (A) expansion into new ‘blocks’ and (B) ‘infilling’ within existing burial area.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the pre-COVID-19 baseline period (between 2017 and 2019), daily burials across the six cemeteries averaged between 10 and 12. From January 2020, an increase in burials – peaking at more than 20 daily in June 2020 – was evident.</p>
<p>Official figures in October 2020 <a href="http://www.emro.who.int/images/stories/somalia/documents/covid-19-information-note-6.pdf?ua=1">stood at</a> 3,864 cases and 99 deaths across all of Somalia. In contrast, from January to September 2020 we estimated an excess death toll between 3,200 and 11,800 in Banadir region alone. This suggests that the death toll nationwide may be considerably higher.</p>
<h2>Drivers of deaths</h2>
<p>We used interviews with informants to better understand what was driving the high number of deaths in Somalia. We interviewed a range of people, including health authorities, gravediggers and religious leaders. </p>
<p>At the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 the government <a href="https://www.un.org/en/coronavirus/somalia-braces-covid-19">imposed</a> a lockdown as well as restrictions on public movements and meetings. This included the closure of schools, government offices and restriction of international travel. </p>
<p>But the people we spoke to told us that there was a lot of scepticism about the existence of COVID-19. This meant that, in reality, compliance was low, therefore community interactions and public gatherings continued to function as normal. Hotels, teashops, mosques, and other public places remained open. </p>
<p>Our informants painted a picture of a healthcare system ill prepared to cope with the magnitude of the epidemic. Several of our key informants mentioned a shortage of key equipment and treatment facilities. The people we spoke to also mentioned elevated prices of face masks and antiseptics which put them out of the reach of ordinary people. </p>
<p>While most of these deaths are likely to be due to COVID-19, we also heard that some were attributable to the indirect effects of the pandemic, such as socio-economic disruptions or reduced access to health services. </p>
<h2>Knowing the toll</h2>
<p>Our study suggests a considerably higher COVID-19 death toll. It also sheds light on some of the drivers of this high death toll.</p>
<p>We believe that our methods – using satellites and geospatial analysis – can be key to monitoring COVID-19 death rates in other countries, such as South Sudan and Ethiopia, where reporting is challenging due to difficulties in access or conflict. </p>
<p>Death tolls serve as one of the clearest indicators of the impact of the pandemics and can be used by policymakers to make more effective decisions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abdihamid Warsame receives funding from UK Research and Innovation as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terri Freemantle received funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abdirisak Dalmar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Satellite imagery can help to get data in fragile, crisis-affected situations.
Abdihamid Warsame, Research Fellow, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/160076
2021-05-04T12:17:12Z
2021-05-04T12:17:12Z
Indians are forced to change rituals for their dead as COVID-19 rages through cities and villages
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398447/original/file-20210503-21-1jco2wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C3288%2C2169&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mass cremations in the city of Bengaluru, India, due to the large number of COVID-19 deaths.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/men-wearing-ppe-perform-the-last-rites-of-a-deceased-news-photo/1315456370?adppopup=true">Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the past several weeks, the world has looked on in horror <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/world/asia/india-coronavirus-deaths.html">as the coronavirus rages across India</a>. With <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-pandemic-record-coronavirus-oxygen/2021/04/24/3afea474-a4f3-11eb-b314-2e993bd83e31_story.html">hospitals running out of beds, oxygen and medicines</a>, the official daily death toll has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/05/01/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases">averaged around 3,000</a>. Many <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/04/30/992451165/india-is-counting-thousands-of-daily-covid-deaths-how-many-is-it-missing">claim that number</a> could be an undercount; crematoriums and cemeteries have run out of space.</p>
<p>The majority of India’s population are Hindu, who favor cremation as a way of disposing of the body. But <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/21/by-2050-india-to-have-worlds-largest-populations-of-hindus-and-muslims/">the Muslim population, which is close to 15%,</a> <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/muhammads-grave/9780231137423">favors burying its dead</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398449/original/file-20210503-21-1kuba0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A worker digging a cemetery in Guwahati, India." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398449/original/file-20210503-21-1kuba0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398449/original/file-20210503-21-1kuba0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398449/original/file-20210503-21-1kuba0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398449/original/file-20210503-21-1kuba0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398449/original/file-20210503-21-1kuba0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398449/original/file-20210503-21-1kuba0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398449/original/file-20210503-21-1kuba0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers digging as they prepare to bury the body of a person who died of COVID-19 in Guwahati, Assam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/workers-digging-as-they-are-prepare-to-bury-a-body-of-a-news-photo/1232595392?adppopup=true">David Talukdar/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Generally, tradition holds that the body is to be cremated or buried as quickly as possible – within <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Death-and-Religion-in-a-Changing-World/Garces-Foley/p/book/9780765612229">24 hours for Hindus, Jains and Muslims, and within three days for Sikhs</a>. This need for rapid disposal has also contributed to the current crisis.</p>
<p>Hundreds of families want their loved ones’ bodies cared for as quickly as possible, but there is a shortage of people who can do the funerals and last rites. This has led to a situation where people are <a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/covid-narendra-modi-pits-smashan-against-kabristan-in-polarising-elections-speech-in-uttar-pradesh/cid/1813065">paying bribes</a> in order to get space or a furnace for cremation. There are also reports of <a href="https://qz.com/india/1824866/indian-doctors-fighting-coronavirus-now-face-social-stigma/">physical fights, and intimidation</a>. </p>
<p>As a scholar interested in the ways Asian societies tell stories about the afterlife and prepare the <a href="https://faculty.txstate.edu/profile/1922200">deceased for it</a>, I argue that the coronavirus crisis represents an unprecedented cultural cataclysm that has forced the Indian culture to challenge the way it handles its dead. </p>
<h2>Cremation grounds and colonial rule</h2>
<p>Many Americans think of cremation happening within an enclosed, mechanized structure, but most Indian crematoriums, known as “shmashana” in Hindi, are open-air spaces with dozens of brick-and-mortar platforms upon which a body can be burned on a pyre made of wood. </p>
<p>Hindus and Sikhs will dispose of the remaining ashes <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/hinduism-today-9781441138200/">in a river</a>. Many shmashana are therefore built near the banks of a river to allow for easy access, but many well-off families often travel to a sacred city along the banks of the river Ganges, such as Hardiwar or Benares, for the final rituals. Jains – who have traditionally given significant consideration to humanity’s impact <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P86357M/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">on the environmental world</a> – bury the ashes as a means to return the body to the Earth and ensure they do not contribute to polluting rivers.</p>
<p>The workers who run shmashana often belong to the Dom ethnicity and have been doing this work for generations; they are lower caste and subsequently perceived as polluted for their intimate <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nomads-India-Proceedings-National-Seminar/dp/B0042LSNH0">work with dead bodies</a>.</p>
<p>The act of cremation has not always been without controversy. In the 19th century, British colonial officials viewed the Indian practice of cremation as barbaric and unhygienic. But they <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520379343/burning-the-dead">were unable to ban it</a> given its pervasiveness. </p>
<p>However, Indians living in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/sep/05/law.religion">United Kingdom</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3557415">South Africa</a> and <a href="https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1178&context=jhcs">Trinidad</a> often had to fight for the right to cremate the dead in accordance with religious rituals because of the mistaken and often racist belief that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/sep/05/law.religion">cremation was primitive, alien and evironmentally polluting</a>. </p>
<h2>Rituals and a long history</h2>
<p>The earliest writings on Indian funerary rituals can be found in the Rig Veda – a Hindu religious scripture orally composed thousands of years ago, potentially as <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rigveda-9780199370184?cc=us&lang=en&">early as 2000 B.C.</a> In the Rig Veda, a hymn, traditionally recited by a priest or an adult male, urges Agni, the Vedic god of fire, to “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Textual_Sources_for_the_Study_of_Hinduis.html?id=YxoaUKmMG9gC">carry this man to the world of those who have done good deeds</a>.” </p>
<p>From the perspective of Hindu, Jain, and Sikh rituals, the act of cremation is <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Many_Colors_of_Hinduism.html?id=RVWKClYq4TUC">seen as a sacrifice</a>, a final breaking of the ties between the body and the spirit so it may be free to reincarnate. The body is traditionally bathed, anointed, and carefully wrapped in white cloth at home, then carried ceremonially, in a procession, by the local community to the cremation grounds. </p>
<p>While Hindus and Sikhs often decorate the body with flowers, Jains avoid natural flowers for concern of inadvertently destroying the lives of insects that may be hidden within its petals. In all of these faiths, a priest or male member of the family recites prayers. It is traditionally the eldest son of the deceased who lights the funerary pyre; women do not go to the <a href="https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/why-women-are-not-allowed-at-shamshan-ghat-55126.html">cremation ground</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398450/original/file-20210503-17-1g3f6c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Relatives gather around the body of a man who died of COVID-19 in India, to perform religious rituals." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398450/original/file-20210503-17-1g3f6c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398450/original/file-20210503-17-1g3f6c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398450/original/file-20210503-17-1g3f6c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398450/original/file-20210503-17-1g3f6c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398450/original/file-20210503-17-1g3f6c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398450/original/file-20210503-17-1g3f6c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398450/original/file-20210503-17-1g3f6c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Family members perform rituals at a crematorium for a person who died of the coronavirus in India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/family-members-and-relatives-perform-rituals-before-the-news-photo/1232622320?adppopup=true">Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the ceremony, mourners return home to bathe themselves and remove what they regard as the inauspicious energy that surrounds the cremation grounds. Communities host a variety of postmortem rituals, including scriptural recitations and symbolic meals, and in some Hindu communities the sons or male members of household will shave their head as a sign of their bereavement. During this mourning period, lasting from 10 to 13 days, the family performs scriptural recitations and prayers in honor of their deceased loved one. </p>
<h2>The changing times of COVID-19</h2>
<p>The wave of death from the COVID-19 pandemic has forced transformations to these long-established religious rituals. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/india-delhi-pyres-public-parks-b1838649.html">Makeshift crematoriums are being constructed</a> in the parking lots of hospitals and in city parks.</p>
<p>Young women may be the only ones available to light the funerary pyre, which was previously not permissible. Families in quarantine are forced to use WhatsApp and other video software to visually identify the body and recite digital <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/opinion/india-covid-crematorium.html">funerary rites</a>. </p>
<p>Media reports have pointed out how in some cases, crematorium workers <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dggy/we-spoke-to-a-cremator-at-the-center-of-indias-covid-hell">have been asked to read prayers</a> traditionally reserved for Brahmin priests or people from a higher caste. Muslim burial grounds have begun to run out of space and are tearing up parking lots to bury more bodies. </p>
<h2>The work of the dead</h2>
<p>While other important rituals such as marriage and baptism may take on a new appearance in response to cultural changes, social media conversations or economic opportunities, funerary rituals <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183559.001.0001/acprof-9780195183559">change slowly</a>. </p>
<p>Historian <a href="https://history.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/emeritus/thomas-w-laqueur">Thomas Laqueur</a> has written on what he calls “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691157788/the-work-of-the-dead">the work of the dead</a>” – the ways in which the bodies of the deceased participate in the social worlds and political realities of the living. </p>
<p>In India’s coronavirus pandemic, the dead are announcing the health crisis that the country believed it had conquered. As recently as April 18, 2021, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-modi-scorned-over-reckless-rallies-religious-gathering-amid-virus-mayhem-2021-04-19/">holding crowded political rallies</a>, and his government allowed the massive Hindu pilgrimage festival of <a href="https://theconversation.com/india-prepares-for-kumbh-mela-worlds-largest-religious-gathering-amid-covid-19-fears-158364">Kumbh Mela</a> to proceed a year early in response to the <a href="https://science.thewire.in/health/leaders-listened-to-astrologers-so-haridwar-mela-happened-after-11-years-not-12/">auspicious forecasts of astrologers</a>. Authorities began to act only when the deaths became impossible to ignore. But even then, the Indian government appeared more concerned about <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/27/991343032/indias-government-is-telling-facebook-twitter-to-remove-critical-posts">removing social media posts that were critical of its functioning</a>.</p>
<p>India is one of the world’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/03/18/978065736/indias-role-in-covid-19-vaccine-production-is-getting-even-bigger">largest vaccine-producing nations</a>, and yet it was unable to make or even purchase the needed vaccines to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/world/asia/india-covid-vaccine-astrazeneca.html">protect its population</a>. </p>
<p>The dead have important stories to tell about neglect, mismanagement or even our global interdependence – if we care to listen.</p>
<p>[<em>Explore the intersection of faith, politics, arts and culture.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-explore">Sign up for This Week in Religion.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160076/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Mikles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As cremation grounds struggle to keep up with the long line of people dying from COVID-19, age-old customs are being pushed aside.
Natasha Mikles, Lecturer in Philosophy, Texas State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/149150
2020-12-08T19:09:18Z
2020-12-08T19:09:18Z
Visions of future cemeteries: 5 models and how Australians feel about them
<p>The coming decades represent an era of uncertainty for Australia’s cemeteries. They also present an opportunity to reflect on what our public cemeteries could and should be. </p>
<p>Our cemeteries are <a href="https://theconversation.com/housing-the-dead-what-happens-when-a-city-runs-out-of-space-70121">running out of space</a>, with more Australians dying than ever before. As a result of a <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/regional-population/latest-release">growing</a> and <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/1CD2B1952AFC5E7ACA257298000F2E76">ageing</a> population, the country’s annual death count has more than doubled since 1960. It will <a href="https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/36">double again</a> by around 2070.</p>
<p>Unlike other real estate, cemetery space is largely a non-renewable resource. Many European countries lease grave sites for a <a href="https://www.talkdeath.com/cemetery-overcrowding-leading-europe-recycle-burial-plots/">limited period</a>, but most Australian states and territories stipulate that each burial must be preserved in perpetuity. New South Wales has introduced a system of opt-in <a href="https://www.industry.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/219610/CCNSW-General-Consumer-Guide.pdf">25-year leases</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/housing-the-dead-what-happens-when-a-city-runs-out-of-space-70121">Housing the dead: what happens when a city runs out of space?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Some intercity cemeteries have been closed to new burials for decades. Demands on cemeteries as green spaces for leisure and recreation, as well as commemorating the dead, are also growing.</p>
<p>This is what makes Victoria’s <a href="https://www.gmct.com.au/harkness">Harkness</a> cemetery development, a 128-hectare site on the edge of Melbourne’s <a href="https://vpa.vic.gov.au/greenfield/growth-corridor-plans/">West Growth Corridor</a>, so significant. It’s Victoria’s largest new cemetery development in 100 years. </p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/470533914" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An overview of the Harkness cemetery site 35km northwest of the Melbourne CBD.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Harkness will shape how Australians live and die for many generations to come. And it is an opportunity to imagine a new future for death in Australia. </p>
<p>We are investigating these issues as members of <a href="https://deathtech.research.unimelb.edu.au">The Future Cemetery</a> project team, in partnership with colleagues at the University of Melbourne, Oxford University and the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust. Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted <a href="https://deathtech.research.unimelb.edu.au/2020/10/09/the-future-cemetery-release-of-first-annual-survey-and-workshop-reports/">two studies</a>: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>a co-design workshop with representatives of the <a href="https://www.trade.gov/market-intelligence/australia-death-care-market">Australian death care industry</a>, which came up with five models for future cemeteries</p></li>
<li><p>a national survey of attitudes to cemeteries, which found many Australians are open to change.</p></li>
</ol>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/buried-beneath-the-trees-a-plan-to-solve-our-shortage-of-cemetery-space-124259">Buried beneath the trees: a plan to solve our shortage of cemetery space</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How cemeteries are changing</h2>
<p>Changes in demography, religious affiliation and technology, among other factors, shape public attitudes to how the dead should be treated. </p>
<p>The demographic trend is reasonably clear. Australia’s population is projected to <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/population-projections-australia/latest-release">grow strongly</a> in coming decades (despite the <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-4-million-less-than-projected-how-coronavirus-could-hit-australias-population-in-the-next-20-years-143544">effects of the coronavirus</a>). This growth is driven mainly by high net overseas migration. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/migrant-communities-keep-our-cemeteries-alive-as-more-anglo-australians-turn-to-cremation-124180">Migrant communities keep our cemeteries alive as more Anglo-Australians turn to cremation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Australia’s religious diversity will <a href="http://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/countries/australia#/?affiliations_religion_id=0&affiliations_year=2050&region_name=All%20Countries&restrictions_year=2016">likely increase</a>, too. Christianity is projected to become a minority religion by 2050 for the first time since European colonisation, and the population of religiously unaffiliated is growing. The preference for burial or cremation within Australia’s diverse communities has a particular marked impact on future cemetery design. </p>
<p>Technology could also revolutionise cemetery design. New methods for treating human remains, such as recomposition (“<a href="https://theconversation.com/ashes-to-ashes-dust-to-compost-an-eco-friendly-burial-in-just-4-weeks-127794">human composting</a>”), alkaline hydrolysis (“<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/148997/fight-right-cremated-water-rise-alkaline-hydrolysis-america">water cremation</a>”) and <a href="https://theconversation.com/buried-beneath-the-trees-a-plan-to-solve-our-shortage-of-cemetery-space-124259">natural burial</a>, could alter the volume and kinds of remains that end up in cemeteries. Other technologies could change how we see the cemetery, from augmented-reality historical tours to remote grave visits through 3D drone photography.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ashes-to-ashes-dust-to-compost-an-eco-friendly-burial-in-just-4-weeks-127794">Ashes to ashes, dust to ... compost? An eco-friendly burial in just 4 weeks</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iTD0GltXB50?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Alkaline hydrolysis, or water cremation, is seen as a greener alternative to cremation.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Five visions of the future cemetery</h2>
<p>The co-design workshop’s five models are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the traditional cemetery as it currently exists</p></li>
<li><p>the nature park cemetery, which integrates burial grounds with native bushland to provide a space that is resource-neutral and open to the public for walking and picnics</p></li>
<li><p>the socially activated cemetery, which makes space available for a range of public uses, from educational activities such as birdwatching and botany to leisure activities such as playgrounds and cafés</p></li>
<li><p>the urban high-rise cemetery, which takes take the form of a centrally located urban building rather than a rolling open lawn, drawing inspiration from <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/9a3a5a/death-is-a-high-tech-trip-in-japans-futuristic-cemeteries">multi-storey columbaria</a> in North-East Asia, to enable the deceased to be laid to rest close to their loved ones</p></li>
<li><p>the digital cemetery, which is the idea of a “technology layer” that will increasingly co-exist with, and perhaps one day even replace, the physical cemetery, where loved ones can share photographs, videos and stories about the deceased. In an age of pandemic lockdowns, this digital layer could even allow for people to visit graves remotely for memorial services.</p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/small-funerals-online-memorials-and-grieving-from-afar-the-coronavirus-is-changing-how-we-care-for-the-dead-134647">Small funerals, online memorials and grieving from afar: the coronavirus is changing how we care for the dead</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Each of these models is a hypothetical – no cemetery in the near future is likely to follow a single model to the exclusion of all others. However, they point towards the differing options cemetery designers have to think about when planning for the next 100 years.</p>
<h2>How do Australians see cemeteries?</h2>
<p>Australians appear to be relatively open to considering new concepts for the cemetery. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://deathtech.research.unimelb.edu.au/2020/10/09/the-future-cemetery-release-of-first-annual-survey-and-workshop-reports/">our national survey</a>, two-thirds of respondents disagreed with the idea that “the cemetery should only be for the interment and memorialisation of the dead”. About a third of respondents supported the use of cemeteries as nature reserves to conserve plants and animals. Similar numbers agreed that a cemetery would be a good place to learn about historical and philosophical issues. </p>
<p>Leisure activities at the cemetery, such as exercise classes, picnics and concerts, attracted much less public support. And conspicuous technologies such as drones and virtual reality systems proved a bridge too far for most.</p>
<p>Most notable was a lack of strong feelings – positive or negative – about many of the proposals for the future cemetery. This suggests to us that, given taboos around death, Australians rarely have the chance to consider the cemetery and its potential uses. We are perhaps open to considering new technologies and ideas for the cemetery, as long as they are implemented respectfully and do not disrupt the fundamental need to mourn the dead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149150/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Gould receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), through the Discovery Projects (DP180103148) and the Linkage Projects (LP180100757) schemes, with Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT) as Linkage Project research partner. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fraser Allison receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) through the Linkage Projects (LP180100757) scheme, with Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (GMCT) as Linkage Project research partner.</span></em></p>
City cemeteries are fast running out of space, so researchers surveyed Australians and found many were quite open to the alternatives to traditional burials.
Hannah Gould, Research Fellow, Social And Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Fraser Allison, Research Fellow, Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146817
2020-09-24T15:34:29Z
2020-09-24T15:34:29Z
In death, as in life, Ruth Bader Ginsburg balanced being American and Jewish
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359800/original/file-20200924-14-4rfry2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C0%2C4977%2C3323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">No lengthy viewing of the body, but no quick burial either.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-flag-draped-casket-of-associate-justice-ruth-bader-news-photo/1228668835?adppopup=true">Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As news of the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spread on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, a common question heard in discussions among American Jews was: “<a href="https://forward.com/news/454909/is-ruth-bader-ginsburg-having-a-jewish-burial-heres-what-we-know-so-far/">When will she be buried</a>?”</p>
<p>As a longtime <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/near-eastern-judaic/people/faculty/sarna.html">scholar of American Jewish life</a>, I understood that the question behind that question was whether, in death, Justice Ginsburg’s family would comply with longstanding Jewish tradition that <a href="http://www.jewish-funeral-guide.com/tradition/jewish-burial-society.htm">mandates prompt burial</a>. Or, in accordance with <a href="https://theconversation.com/life-after-death-americans-are-embracing-new-ways-to-leave-their-remains-85657">longstanding American tradition</a>, would her burial be delayed so that mourners might pay her respects?</p>
<p>In death, as in life, American Jews looked to see how Justice Ginsburg balanced being an American and being a Jew. </p>
<h2>‘Dust returns to the earth’</h2>
<p>“Jewish custom insists on prompt burial…a consideration of particular relevance in hot climates,” the authoritative <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ancient-burial-practices">Encyclopaedia Judaica explains</a>. To honor the dead, Orthodox Jews perform burials as quickly as possible, sometimes within just a few hours.</p>
<p>That’s not always possible, of course. Funerals can be delayed when the death falls on the Sabbath – a day of rest in the Jewish faith when no burials are performed – or on a Jewish holiday. They can also be delayed to accommodate the needs and considerations of close relatives traveling in from afar. </p>
<p>The practice of burying Jews swiftly is so deeply ingrained, however, that in 1995 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was far from Orthodox and whose funeral was <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-11-07-1995311074-story.html">attended by leaders who rushed in from around the world</a>, had his funeral performed and was buried within just two days of his assassination.</p>
<p>If Justice Ginsburg’s family did not follow Jewish tradition by delaying her burial, in other respects they honored that tradition to the hilt. For example, the wooden casket <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/death-of-ruth-bader-ginsburg/2020/09/21/915269363/ginsburg-to-lie-in-repose-at-supreme-court-on-wednesday-thursday">lying in repose</a> at the Supreme Court and in state at the Capitol remained firmly shut. And in keeping with Jewish practice, there was no public viewing of her body and, apparently, no embalming. Far from preserving the body, Jews believe, following the book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Bible, that “<a href="https://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/3-20.htm">the dust returns to the earth as it was</a>” –- the sooner the better. </p>
<h2>A fitting rest</h2>
<p>Justice Ginsburg also received, for the first time in American Jewish history, a traditional <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/09/23/ginsburg-memorial-rabbi-jewish/">Jewish funeral in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court</a>. <a href="https://www.adasisrael.org/clergy-staff-lay-leaders">Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt</a>, a Conservative rabbi of Congregation Adas Israel in Washington and a friend of Ginsburg’s whose husband once served as the justice’s law clerk, presided alongside Chief Justice John Roberts. </p>
<p>The service included all the familiar components of a Jewish funeral including a stirring eulogy, recitation of the <a href="https://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2623.htm">23rd Psalm</a>, and the chanting, in Hebrew, of the late medieval prayer <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/el-maleh-rahamim/">El Maleh Rachamim</a>: “God full of mercy…grant fitting rest.” The prayer recited at Ginsburg’s funeral included the justice’s full Hebrew name – Yita Ruchel bat Celia – which includes her mother’s name, but untraditionally, not her father’s.</p>
<p>Usually, burial in a Jewish cemetery follows immediately upon a Jewish funeral, individual mourners reverently accompanying the casket to wherever the cemetery is located. There, around the open grave, additional prayers including a special kaddish, a praise of God, are recited and the casket is lowered. </p>
<p>Mourners and community members then personally participate in the powerful act of filling the grave in, shoveling a spadeful of dirt atop the casket, each thump reinforcing the finality that death represents.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>In the case of Justice Ginsburg, that won’t happen in a Jewish cemetery. Instead, after her casket lies in state, it will be <a href="https://www.stripes.com/news/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-an-advocate-for-military-women-to-be-buried-at-arlington-1.645789">transported to Arlington National Cemetery</a> for a private burial service. Arlington, a national and non-denominational cemetery, has no special section set aside for Jews and explicitly forbids some traditional Jewish rituals such as <a href="https://dc.jewish-funerals.org/burial-jewish-war-veterans-military-cemeteries">manually lowering the casket and filling in the grave</a>.</p>
<h2>Two identities</h2>
<p>The traditional Jewish elements in Justice Ginsburg’s funeral and the departures from Jewish tradition connected with her burial both reflect aspects of her identity. She took <a href="https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/how-judaism-animated-ruth-bader-ginsburgs-life-643108">great pride in her Jewish heritage</a> but broke with most traditional Jewish practices. </p>
<p>In death, as in life, she cherished two identities – being an American and being a Jew – even when they failed to easily harmonize. Her Jewish funeral and Arlington National Cemetery burial speak to her quest to balance these two identities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146817/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan D. Sarna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The former justice received a Jewish funeral at the Supreme Court. But in other ways, Ginsburg’s burial is breaking with traditional Jewish death rituals.
Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/144966
2020-09-01T14:15:08Z
2020-09-01T14:15:08Z
Cemetery design has to consider many sensitive issues: lessons from Johannesburg
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355056/original/file-20200827-16-4sff6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An aerial picture of funerals taking place at a section of the Westpark cemetery in Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Spatari/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s cities have been shaped by its <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/divisions/bo/ndp/TTRI/TTRI%20Oct%202007/Day%201%20-%2029%20Oct%202007/1a%20Keynote%20Address%20Li%20Pernegger%20Paper.pdf">colonial and apartheid history</a>. And for many years South Africans were divided even after death. Cemeteries reflect the spatial imbalances and segregation inherited from earlier times.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3059926?seq=1">nineteenth century</a>, religion determined where a person was buried within a cemetery. This continued into the twentieth century. At the peak of apartheid, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lorena_Nunez6/publication/313176373_UnRest_in_Peace_The_Local_Burial_of_Foreign_Migrants_as_a_Contested_Process_of_Place_Making/links/5a5da8f5aca272d4a3ddf2a8/UnRest-in-Peace-The-Local-Burial-of-Foreign-Migrants-as-a-Contested-Process-of-Place-Making.pdf">segregationist laws</a> stipulated that cemeteries be classified by race and ethnicity.</p>
<p>That ended with the arrival of democracy, but cemeteries continue to reflect changing values and needs. </p>
<p>Municipalities, particularly those in urban areas, are now forced to identify new cemetery planning methods and models that are environmentally sensitive and consistent with diverse cultural practices, and facilitate social cohesion.</p>
<p>The City of Johannesburg, for one, is exploring new approaches to cemetery planning and provision to meet current and future demand. There is a drive by the city to design cemeteries that accommodate everyone, whatever their racial or economic status or religion. </p>
<p>Like many South African cities, Johannesburg faces diverse challenges. Cemeteries take up a lot of land and mostly promote a single-use design. Unless burial practices are reviewed, cities face a real threat of running out of burial land.</p>
<p>My PhD <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/24012">research</a> looked at Waterval Cemetery as an example of Johannesburg’s innovative design of future cemeteries. I wanted to find out what people thought of current and alternative burial options, and what social barriers there might be to the provision of innovative cemeteries that foster sustainability, inclusion and cohesion. </p>
<p>I then <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/featured-projects/urban-innovations/">studied</a> Diepsloot Memorial Park, an unconventional cemetery that opened in 2007. It was designed to densify burial, foster inclusion and relieve older cemeteries that were reaching capacity. I wanted to investigate the local community’s perceptions and barriers to acceptance of the memorial park. I also wanted to determine the general public’s view of newer cemetery designs that combine burial and recreation.</p>
<p>I found that most people embraced the integration of green elements within cemeteries, as long as these didn’t affect the core function of burial. But integrating these elements for recreation was seen as disrespectful. A majority of the people I spoke to didn’t embrace alternatives. For instance, cremation was perceived as offensive, and not much was known about mausoleums. Educating communities about these alternatives could improve acceptance, particularly given that a substantial number could be open to change.</p>
<h2>Re-imagining cemeteries</h2>
<p>Cemeteries can be viewed as part of a city’s green infrastructure. This means that green elements such as trees, grass and flowers are integrated in the cemetery’s design. That way they provide services to both the living and the dead. In addition to burial, they also conserve and restore ecological services. These include regulating temperature, soil erosion and flooding, and providing habitats for insects and small animals. </p>
<p>The idea is that when green infrastructure principles are integrated into their design, cemeteries look more pleasing and are used better. Another consideration is that some cultures hold that the dead are aware of their surroundings. </p>
<p>The question is whether Johannesburg’s cemeteries are being planned with this in mind, and whether people will accept this new approach to cemetery design and alternatives to conventional burial. If people resist change, land may not be put to good use. Limiting what land is used for is not sustainable in the long run and increases contestation over diminishing resources.</p>
<p>Conventional burial is interment of human remains underground. Alternatives include interment above ground in mausoleums and cremation which entails burning of human remains into ashes. </p>
<p>Most participants in my Waterval Cemetery research were open to the integration of green elements such as trees and grass within the cemetery as it provides a comforting atmosphere and dignifies the space. It has an ecological function for the city and they believed it promotes health and tranquillity, and thus aids with grieving. </p>
<p>But most people did not approve of recreational activities taking place in cemeteries. They found it offensive. </p>
<p>Participants were aware of alternatives such as cremation. But they had limited knowledge about it and its cost in comparison to conventional burial. Cremation seemed to cause a lot of debate and was a sensitive issue for most participants. People believed cremation was more expensive than conventional burial. Nonetheless, many seemed open to the idea. </p>
<p>But when I studied the Diepsloot Memorial Park, I found resistance to innovation. Firstly, there has been a slow uptake of graves as the cemetery does not comply with users’ values and norms. This is because it combines both burial and recreation. Secondly, most participants would prefer only one body to be buried in a grave instead of multiple bodies as the municipality encourages. Thirdly, the community does not favour the use of flat ground plaques for the cemetery to look like a park and for easy maintenance. Lastly, funeral undertakers discourage members of the community from using the cemetery because restrictions such as use of plaques rather than full body memorials and upright headstones undermine revenue.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>My research showed that there are major social barriers towards adoption of newer methods of interment and cemetery designs. </p>
<p>A shift towards designing innovative cemeteries requires a strong understanding of local socio-cultural contexts. </p>
<p>Cemeteries are some of the most important spaces in cities, especially in South Africa, where burial practices are an important part of diverse cultures and form a link to community history.</p>
<p>The country’s cultural and religious diversity adds to the complexity, and requires greater consultation with the stakeholders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144966/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tsepang Leuta has received funding from the Urban Resilience Programme through the DST/NRF funding opportunity and from the GCI (previously GCSRI) at the University of the Witwatersrand.</span></em></p>
Municipalities are now forced to identify new cemetery planning methods and models that are environmentally sensitive and consistent with diverse cultural practices, and facilitate social cohesion.
Tsepang Leuta, Lecturer in Planning, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/136655
2020-04-24T12:22:44Z
2020-04-24T12:22:44Z
Mass graves for coronavirus victims shouldn’t come as a shock – it’s how the poor have been buried for centuries
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329587/original/file-20200421-82672-9j0lht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C4%2C2868%2C1905&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies in a trench on Hart Island in New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-New-York/b223d9e3c93e442a980116ea1f335d86/12/0">John Minchillo/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The coronavirus is not only controlling how we live, but increasingly what happens after we die. </p>
<p>In early April, New York City’s Council Health Committee chair Mark Levine generated buzz after tweeting that the city was <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/nyc-to-start-temporary-burials-for-covid-19-victims-likely-in-trenches-in-nyc-parks-levine/2361777/">considering temporary burials in local parks</a> for victims of COVID-19. News outlets and social media users eagerly circulated his tweets, which seemed to be an ominous sign of the disease’s toll. </p>
<p>Although city officials assured residents that such temporary burials had not yet taken place, aerial footage of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hart-island/new-york-city-hires-laborers-to-bury-dead-in-hart-island-potters-field-amid-coronavirus-surge-idUSKCN21R398">workers in protective gear interring bodies on Hart Island</a>, the city’s “<a href="https://grammarist.com/idiom/potters-field/">potter’s field</a>,” seemed to confirm that the epidemic was overwhelming both our health care and our death care industries.</p>
<p>For people who expect a “proper” send-off when they die, the images were shocking, but for <a href="https://www.naco.org/articles/undertakers-last-resort-indigent-burials-rise-denting-county-budgets">thousands of poor Americans, the prospect of burial in such a grave is a growing reality</a>. It also is nothing new.</p>
<h2>Cost of dying</h2>
<p>Burial on Hart Island has been the <a href="https://www.hartisland.net/history">fate of indigent New Yorkers for years</a>. The city purchased the island in 1868 and performed its first burial there the following year. With approximately <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/the-transformation-of-hart-island">1,000,000 individuals interred there since</a>, the island off the Bronx is one of the nation’s largest potter’s fields, but it certainly is not the only one.</p>
<p>Programs exist throughout the country to handle the indigent dead, a category that includes unidentified bodies or deceased individuals whose families cannot or will not claim their bodies. These programs <a href="https://safepassageurns.com/blogs/blog/states-and-counties-that-provide-government-assistance-for-funeral-costs">vary by state and, in many cases, by county</a>. Most allow for an extended period of time for family to claim the remains, then rely on various methods for disposing of the bodies left behind.</p>
<p>Chicago inters remains in plots <a href="https://www.catholiccemeterieschicago.org/About/Indigent_Burials">donated by the Catholic Archdiocese</a> at Mount Olivet cemetery. San Francisco contracts with a cemetery in nearby Oakland <a href="https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2004/12/13/unclaimed-dead-get-burial-at-sea/">to dispose of cremated remains at sea</a>.</p>
<p>Costs for handling these remains can range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per body, <a href="https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-funeral-assistance-cost.html">creating a financial burden</a> for some cities and counties. Often, cremation is the preferred method of disposal because of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/community-hub/funeral-planning/2020/03/24/cremation-pros-and-cons/5065222002/">its lower cost</a>, but in some cases, <a href="https://www.naco.org/articles/undertakers-last-resort-indigent-burials-rise-denting-county-budgets">counties donate the dead to medical science</a>, which is free.</p>
<h2>Rich and fulfilling death</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://history.case.edu/faculty/vicki-daniel/">historian of death in America</a>, I have seen how socioeconomic standing has dramatically shaped the final disposition of the dead throughout time, especially after the rise of the funeral industry following the Civil War. By the end of the 19th century, the more affluent could afford to be embalmed, laid out in a casket, transported to a cemetery, and put to rest in a marked plot, <a href="https://ia802800.us.archive.org/31/items/funeralmanagemen00dowdrich/funeralmanagemen00dowdrich.pdf">all which might cost around US$100</a> – around $3,000 in today’s dollars.</p>
<p>But those without means have long relied on the community to properly dispose of their remains. In rural communities, where most residents knew one another, the poor might at least hope to receive an unmarked plot in the local churchyard – the primary burial site until <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/our-first-public-parks-the-forgotten-history-of-cemeteries/71818/">the establishment of public burying grounds</a> in the 19th century. </p>
<p>In cities, however, the indigent dead often became the responsibility of municipal departments, such as the board of health. As better wages drew laborers to urban areas in the late 19th century, officials worked to address perceived problems stemming from industrialization and rapid population growth: poverty, vice, crime and disease. Those who died in public hospitals, poorhouses, workhouses, orphanages or prisons were usually buried by the city with little ceremony. Bodies were placed in simple coffins and carted straight to the public burial grounds with minimal funeral service. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329588/original/file-20200421-82707-1uqu5il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329588/original/file-20200421-82707-1uqu5il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329588/original/file-20200421-82707-1uqu5il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329588/original/file-20200421-82707-1uqu5il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329588/original/file-20200421-82707-1uqu5il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329588/original/file-20200421-82707-1uqu5il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329588/original/file-20200421-82707-1uqu5il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A grave marking the entrance to New York’s Hart Island cemetery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-New-York/6421ebcadd2d4859828a3c32c256be9f/72/0">Seth Wenig/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sadly, burial in a potter’s field also sometimes rendered the poor more vulnerable in death than they had been in life. In an era before willed body donation programs, medical schools throughout the country often <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17226823">targeted the poor</a> – as well as criminals and African Americans – for the dissecting lab. Medical students or professional grave robbers disinterred remains under the cover of night, sometimes with <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Traffic_of_Dead_Bodies/yf5ZDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1">the explicit permission of bribed public officials or cemetery employees</a>. What’s more, the practice of grave robbing eventually became <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1845037">legally sanctioned through the passage of anatomy acts</a>, whereby states like Massachusetts and Michigan permitted medical students to dissect unclaimed bodies from poorhouses.</p>
<p>Even without the threat of dissection, the potter’s field – named after the biblical, clay-rich burial ground the high priests of Jerusalem bought with Judas’ 30 pieces of silver – was a place of stigma. As a result, many communities did what they could to protect their own from such a fate. For example, black churches, such as Baltimore’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4X_WDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT141&lpg=PT141&dq=Baltimore+African+Methodist+Episcopal+Church+burial+grounds&source=bl&ots=Tsyh8GtDlc&sig=ACfU3U0ItSE_xlad9jEieHGT2jCkZ38JHg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjI4dGBgvzoAhXAl3IEHUZzD0gQ6AEwBXoECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q=Baltimore%20African%20Methodist%20Episcopal%20Church%20burial%20grounds&f=false">founded burial grounds for the city’s enslaved and free residents</a>. Similarly, African American benevolent societies in the 19th and 20th centuries often paid funeral and burial costs for their members. </p>
<h2>Permanently parked</h2>
<p>Likewise, New York’s <a href="https://www.hebrewfreeburial.org/">Jewish community had burial societies</a> and immigrant aid societies that provided similar services, assuring individuals remained part of their community, even in death. </p>
<p>Such practices were difficult to uphold during periods of crisis. For example, during deadly outbreaks of yellow fever and cholera in the 19th century, New York officials – fearing that the dead were contagious – hastily <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/12/new-york-city-burials-parks-coronavirus-plague">interred bodies in local parks</a>. In such instances, corpses were placed in large trenches with little ceremony or intimate care. Similarly, when the flu overwhelmed Philadelphia in 1918, bodies were <a href="https://www.phillyvoice.com/1918-philadelphia-was-grippe-misery-and-suffering/">buried in mass graves</a> all around the city. Such graves were also common after mass fatality events, like <a href="https://nursingclio.org/2015/12/02/public-health-and-the-dead-at-johnstown/">the 1889 Johnstown Flood</a>, especially before DNA testing allowed for the identification of unknown remains.</p>
<p>Recent angst about Hart Island allows us to consider why these mass burials trouble us. They serve not only as reminders of our own mortality, but also the fragility of our death rituals in times of crisis. We all hope that our deaths will be good deaths, surrounded by loved ones, but COVID-19 kills people in isolation and limits our rituals. Yet, this is already a reality for many Americans.</p>
<p>Indigent burials have been <a href="https://www.naco.org/articles/undertakers-last-resort-indigent-burials-rise-denting-county-budgets">on the rise for years</a> due to both <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/the-rising-cost-of-dying-1986-2017.htm">the increase in funeral costs</a> and the widening gap between rich and poor, now further exacerbated by the pandemic’s economic effects. We will likely see an increase in the number of people for whom such burial remains a real possibility even after the pandemic resides. </p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vicki Daniel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From burial sites targeted by grave robbers to disposing of ashes at sea, the job of disposing of the unclaimed dead has a rich history. Sadly, it still goes on today and is on the rise.
Vicki Daniel, Teaching Fellow and Instructor of History, Case Western Reserve University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/134842
2020-03-30T15:02:33Z
2020-03-30T15:02:33Z
Coronavirus is changing funerals and how we deal with the dead
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323640/original/file-20200327-146689-b5zwtx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C0%2C5613%2C3739&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/people-mourning-concept-woman-white-lily-664197991">Syda Productions/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-how-the-current-number-of-people-dying-in-the-uk-compares-to-the-past-decade-134420">death rate climbs from COVID-19</a>, what happens to the bodies of those who’ve died will become an increasingly pressing issue. People who have lost loved ones will have to contend with the additional trauma of not being able to give them a proper “send off”, as funerals change dramatically in the short-term. </p>
<p>The law’s treatment of human remains has always been premised on two things: respect for the dead, and <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/22">public health concerns</a> around bodily decay and risk of disease. And while all possible steps will be taken to uphold respect for the dead, in pandemics the emphasis inevitably shifts to public health.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/contents/enacted/data.htm">The Coronavirus Act 2020</a> is the emergency legislation passed by the UK parliament to deal with an outbreak that could affect up to 80% of the UK population. The act introduces a range of sweeping powers that allow public bodies to respond to the pandemic. These and other government measures will have a significant impact on what happens to the dead and how funerals are conducted in the coming weeks and months – as I outline below:</p>
<h2>1. Family-only funerals</h2>
<p>As part of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52014472%207%20https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-52019102">the lockdown</a> introduced on March 23, funerals can still go ahead to prevent a backlog building up – but with attendance limited to immediate family. </p>
<p>This will make <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-experts-in-evolution-explain-why-social-distancing-feels-so-unnatural-134271">social distancing</a> easier, protecting not only the small numbers of mourners, but also funeral directors and other cemetery staff who will play a vital role as mortality rates increase. </p>
<p>Of course, the emotional impact of altered funeral formats on the living will be horrendous. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-52019102">Closed coffins</a> prevent families from seeing a loved one who may have died alone in hospital, or kissing them goodbye. And limiting attendance at funerals will upset relatives and friends of the deceased who cannot physically attend. </p>
<p>Live-streaming funerals may help – as some families are doing – but many people will feel that it’s not the same – with the wider social support that funerals provide, which is such an important part of the grieving process, lost as well. </p>
<h2>2. Death registrations</h2>
<p>Deaths are usually registered by a family member who attends the registrar’s office in person. But to allow greater flexibility as pressures on the system increase – and to curb the rate of virus transmission – the Coronavirus Act also allows funeral directors to register deaths, and for documentation to be submitted electronically. </p>
<p>When doctors certify the cause of death for COVID-19 victims, the rule that a second doctor must also check this and provide a confirmatory certificate has also been relaxed to speed things up. The rule was introduced after Manchester GP, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-death-certification-process/an-overview-of-the-death-certification-reforms">Harold Shipman</a>, was convicted in 2000 of murdering 15 of his patients and cremating their bodies (though the suspected number is over 200).</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323664/original/file-20200327-146666-1pz9f6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323664/original/file-20200327-146666-1pz9f6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323664/original/file-20200327-146666-1pz9f6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323664/original/file-20200327-146666-1pz9f6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323664/original/file-20200327-146666-1pz9f6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323664/original/file-20200327-146666-1pz9f6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323664/original/file-20200327-146666-1pz9f6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Family only funerals will make grieving hard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/people-mourning-concept-woman-white-lily-664197991">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>3. Scrapping inquests</h2>
<p>Deaths by certain diseases trigger jury inquests as a matter of law. Jury members hear evidence and can return conclusions where there are questions over how the deceased died. But the act removes the legal requirement for jury inquests into confirmed or suspected COVID-19 deaths, since jury inquests take a long time to carry out. Delaying these inquests until after the pandemic would also be traumatic for families of COVID-19 victims. </p>
<h2>4. Transporting, storing and dealing with bodies</h2>
<p>Local authorities have been given extensive powers under the new act to ensure that bodies are treated with care and respect and that the system does not become overwhelmed. Examples of this have been seen elsewhere: in Bergamo, Italy, <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-italian-army-called-in-to-carry-away-corpses-as-citys-crematorium-is-overwhelmed-11959994">bodies had to be dispatched</a> to other crematoria in the province when the city’s own crematorium was struggling to cope. </p>
<p>In the UK, local authorities can now request that organisations help them transport and store bodies. Additional facilities can also be set up to handle the volume of deaths -– though it is hoped this won’t involve <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-spain-madrid-ice-rink-morgue-death-toll-china-covid-19-a9424541.html">converting an ice rink into a temporary morgue</a>, as authorities in Madrid were forced to do when death rates soared. Increased space for graves will also be set aside and crematoria may have to increase their operating hours to cope with the influx of bodies. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324079/original/file-20200330-146712-sngvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324079/original/file-20200330-146712-sngvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324079/original/file-20200330-146712-sngvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324079/original/file-20200330-146712-sngvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324079/original/file-20200330-146712-sngvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324079/original/file-20200330-146712-sngvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324079/original/file-20200330-146712-sngvyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">All over the world, coronavirus has changed the way we are carrying out funerals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wooden-coffins-store-297270401">Alzbeta/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Every society <a href="https://www.azquotes.com/quote/934227">prides itself on how it treats its dead</a>, and it is hoped that the more radical measures contemplated in the Coronavirus Act never have to be implemented. Yet, in a time of such fear and uncertainty, when governments worldwide are adopting emergency powers to protect their citizens, there are no guarantees. How we deal with our dead will change – and funerals, as we know them, will regrettably but necessarily, be another of our social rituals that must radically alter in the short term.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Conway is a Council Member and trustee of the Cremation Society of GB. </span></em></p>
Funerals, as we know them, will regrettably but necessarily be another of our social rituals that must radically alter in the short-term.
Heather Conway, Professor of Property Law and Death Studies, Queen's University Belfast
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124259
2019-09-30T19:45:19Z
2019-09-30T19:45:19Z
Buried beneath the trees: a plan to solve our shortage of cemetery space
<p>There’s a <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/forget-housing-grave-space-is-the-new-millennial-headache">lack of new cemetery space</a> in parts of Australia but we could solve that problem by burying the dead among newly planted vegetation belts near our towns and cities.</p>
<p>Burial Belt is a proposal we’ve been working on for reinventing the Australian cemetery landscape by creating near-limitless land for burial. Our idea is currently on exhibition at the <a href="http://oslotriennale.no/en/aboutoat2019">Oslo Architecture Triennale</a>, in Norway. </p>
<p>This new approach to burial would feature native trees rather than rows of headstones.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/housing-the-dead-what-happens-when-a-city-runs-out-of-space-70121">Housing the dead: what happens when a city runs out of space?</a>
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<p>It would reforest cleared land and provide an alternative to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth">high-emissions livestock grazing</a>. It could even prevent suburban sprawl by safeguarding green space in perpetuity. </p>
<p>All it requires is a new way of thinking about what happens to our bodies when we die.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294690/original/file-20190930-185369-1uzbli3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294690/original/file-20190930-185369-1uzbli3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294690/original/file-20190930-185369-1uzbli3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294690/original/file-20190930-185369-1uzbli3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294690/original/file-20190930-185369-1uzbli3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294690/original/file-20190930-185369-1uzbli3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294690/original/file-20190930-185369-1uzbli3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294690/original/file-20190930-185369-1uzbli3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Burial space is running out in some Australian cemeteries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/quirky/6527021105/">Flickr/Wendy Harman</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>After life</h2>
<p>Traditional burial in a local cemetery was the norm for most Australians until late in the 20th century. Today an increasing proportion of Australians choose cremation.</p>
<p>Unlike burial, cremation seems clean, efficient and free of the emotional weight of a sombre headstone in a grid of other graves. Cremation doesn’t have to take up space and ashes can be stored in a special place or dispersed into a favourite landscape. </p>
<p>Cremation now accounts for <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-04-27/green-death-funeral-environment/10994330">more than 70% of all Australian interments</a>. That is not surprising when you consider that the average cost of cremation is <a href="https://www.gatheredhere.com.au/burial-cremation-everything-need-know/">less than half that of burial</a>.</p>
<p>Soaring land costs and dwindling reserves of existing cemetery space have also contributed to the high cost of burial.</p>
<p>Australian burial plots are among <a href="https://www.domain.com.au/money-markets/the-most-expensive-land-in-australia-might-be-graves-heres-the-problem-20180627-h11wzp-441795/">the most valuable real estate</a> in the country. </p>
<h2>What else goes up in smoke?</h2>
<p>Most people we speak to are surprised to learn that cremation is an energy-intensive and toxic process.</p>
<p>The energy consumed by a single cremation is equal to about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/oct/18/ethicalmoney.climatechange">one person’s average monthly domestic use</a>.</p>
<p>Each <a href="https://www.foreground.com.au/environment/urban-burial-cemetery-landscapes/">cremation</a> releases on average about 50kg of CO2 and other toxins.</p>
<p>When you consider both the economic and environmental costs of cremation, the obvious solution is to provide more affordable burial space.</p>
<p>But with scarce land available for this purpose close to our city centres, any solution is contingent on persuading large numbers of people to not only return to burial, but to reconsider the entire cemetery experience. </p>
<h2>A more natural burial</h2>
<p>The Burial Belt proposal relies on a societal shift from traditional burial and cremation to natural burial. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/nov/11/pushing-up-trees-is-natural-burial-the-answer-to-crowded-cemeteries">Natural burial</a> does away with embalming, wooden coffins, concrete shafts and expanses of tarmac.</p>
<p>Bodies are placed in direct contact with the soil and buried within reach of microbes, where they can then truly return to the earth.</p>
<p>Natural burial is also <a href="https://www.gatheredhere.com.au/green-funerals-australia/">much cheaper to implement than traditional burial</a>. </p>
<p>Where would this take place? That’s where the Burial Belt proposal comes in.</p>
<p>Our future burial parkland already exists, just beyond the outermost suburban lots that ring Australian cities. This border land is currently occupied by sheep and cattle pastures but is increasingly being rezoned and amalgamated into an ever-expanding urban footprint.</p>
<p>Converting this territory into burial parkland, rather than housing subdivision, would protect whatever wildlife and vegetation remains in this cleared and denuded landscape, while curtailing urban sprawl.</p>
<h2>Preserved forever</h2>
<p>The key element of this proposed transformation is that, while natural burial land quickly becomes indistinguishable from bushland, current legislation provides for preservation of cemetery spaces in perpetuity.</p>
<p>Incorporating burial within the forest establishes a covenant over the revegetated grazing land that cannot be reversed. No more urban sprawl.</p>
<p>Fields and allotments would be individually acquired by public or private entities and converted into burial forest. Adjoining sections of forest would be gradually amalgamated into a single Burial Belt, a linear green swathe that halts further development and protects agricultural land and remnant habitat on the other side.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294474/original/file-20190926-51434-1co1tt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294474/original/file-20190926-51434-1co1tt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294474/original/file-20190926-51434-1co1tt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294474/original/file-20190926-51434-1co1tt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294474/original/file-20190926-51434-1co1tt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294474/original/file-20190926-51434-1co1tt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294474/original/file-20190926-51434-1co1tt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294474/original/file-20190926-51434-1co1tt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">View of a burial ring at the edge of a clearing in a proposed Burial Belt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Other Architects</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>From an architectural point of view, there are many ways this general idea could be implemented to suit different site conditions and communities.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/increasing-tree-cover-may-be-like-a-superfood-for-community-mental-health-119930">Increasing tree cover may be like a 'superfood' for community mental health</a>
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<p>In the current proposal, large clearings are carved out of the immensity of the forest, with smaller hollows containing intimately-scaled burial spaces dispersed around the edges of these clearings. </p>
<p>Access could be provided via boardwalks and other temporary facilities similar to those found in national parks. The proposed forest cemetery requires little upkeep. Rather than returning periodically to sweep away leaves or lay flowers on a loved one’s traditional grave, visitors are free to let nature do its work. </p>
<p>There is no reason why the Burial Belt idea could not be widely implemented by local operators and councils as an effective method of funding habitat regeneration while providing for the community’s long term burial needs.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article draws on UTS Master of Architecture design studios conducted by David Neustein and Grace Mortlock, and specific research contributions from UTS students Rowan Lear and Sora Graham.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Burial Belt is a proposal by Open Architects, of which David Neustein is a director.</span></em></p>
With space in our cemeteries running out, we could bury the dead in new forest developments that would bring green space to our urban areas.
David Neustein, Associate, School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100456
2018-08-01T20:19:54Z
2018-08-01T20:19:54Z
A grave omission: the quest to identify the dead in remote NT
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229179/original/file-20180725-194134-pbw5v3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A bough shelter made for the funeral of W. Willika in the remote Northern Territory community of Barunga.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Claire Smith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s hard to believe, but in 2018 the vast majority of graves of Aboriginal people in remote Northern Territory communities are not recorded in any register. When someone dies they are buried, but there’s no written record of which grave belongs to whom.</p>
<p>Virtually every member of the remote Aboriginal community of <a href="https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Barunga+NT+0852/@-14.5286773,132.8319454,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x2cb018a7ec6c4319:0x40217a82a254090!8m2!3d-14.520833!4d132.865">Barunga</a> in the NT has a relative lying in an unmarked grave in the local cemetery – but they don’t know exactly where they are. For Jasmine Willika, it is her sister and grandmother. For Joyce Bulumbara, her father. For Isaac Pamkal, his father and grandmother. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229932/original/file-20180731-176683-dlxp0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229932/original/file-20180731-176683-dlxp0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229932/original/file-20180731-176683-dlxp0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229932/original/file-20180731-176683-dlxp0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229932/original/file-20180731-176683-dlxp0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229932/original/file-20180731-176683-dlxp0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229932/original/file-20180731-176683-dlxp0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229932/original/file-20180731-176683-dlxp0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Isaac Pamkal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Claire Smith</span></span>
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<p>The identity of the person buried in an unmarked grave is remembered by loved ones for some time. Plastic flowers may mark it, until they erode. But there was no cultural tradition of headstones, or money to pay for them even if there had been. (In traditional burials, a person’s bones were put in a <a href="https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/1125509"><em>lorrkon</em></a> and placed in a cave.)</p>
<p>After a while, people forget who is buried where. In time, the remembering generation also dies. So, the identities of people in these graves become more and more blurred. </p>
<p>This makes it difficult to mourn properly, or to care for that person by caring for their grave. And there are other distressing ramifications. In 1998, there were record floods in the region. In the neighbouring community of <a href="http://ropergulf.nt.gov.au/our-communities/beswick/">Beswick/Wugularr</a>, a number of coffins rose to the surface. No-one knew who was in them. </p>
<p>In the past, the dead have also been accidentally unearthed at Barunga by those digging new graves. Today, family members select grave sites after consulting the <em>Junggayi</em>, the senior traditional custodian.</p>
<p>This is a Territory-wide problem: the result of <a href="http://sociology.iresearchnet.com/sociology-of-race/structural-or-institutional-racism/">structural racism</a>. Like the infamous <a href="https://www.monash.edu/law/research/centres/castancentre/our-research-areas/indigenous-research/the-northern-territory-intervention/the-northern-territory-intervention-an-evaluation/what-is-the-northern-territory-intervention">Northern Territory National Emergency Response</a> of 2007, race-based discrimination is enacted through geography. While the graves of people in <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/northern-territory/thousands-of-aboriginal-people-have-been-buried-in-unmarked-graves-in-the-northern-territory/news-story/153cfd29a7ffee12abbfa2edb62683d1">major towns must be registered</a>, it has not been compulsory to record the location of graves of Aboriginal people in remote areas. The situation dates back to 1890s laws enacted when the South Australian government administered the NT. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/northern-territory/thousands-of-aboriginal-people-have-been-buried-in-unmarked-graves-in-the-northern-territory/news-story/153cfd29a7ffee12abbfa2edb62683d1">spokeswoman for the NT government</a> has said new cemeteries legislation is being drafted and will be available for public consultation in October this year. “The new legislation will have similar requirements for urban and regional cemeteries,” she said.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229937/original/file-20180731-176698-1dx174c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229937/original/file-20180731-176698-1dx174c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229937/original/file-20180731-176698-1dx174c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229937/original/file-20180731-176698-1dx174c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229937/original/file-20180731-176698-1dx174c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229937/original/file-20180731-176698-1dx174c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229937/original/file-20180731-176698-1dx174c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229937/original/file-20180731-176698-1dx174c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jasmine Willika (right) with her mother, Rachael Kendino, try to identify graves at Barunga, which include Jasmine’s sister and her grandmother.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Claire Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, remote commmunities need money to employ people to record graves. “The government needs to allocate resources to solve this problem,” says Barunga resident Helen Lee. “It is not going to solve itself. Across the Territory, there has been 150 years of neglect.”</p>
<p>In the meantime, graves must be identified. While some remote communities are tiny and/or recent, others have been around for more than 100 years. The bigger ones could have hundreds of unmarked graves.</p>
<h2>A community calls for help</h2>
<p>In April this year, community elder Guy Rankin called Claire Smith and Gary Jackson asking us to record the Barunga graveyard. We had undertaken this work in 2013, in response to a community request, but the work needed updating. In June, <a href="http://ropergulf.nt.gov.au/">Roper Gulf Regional Council</a>, which has administrative responsibilities for a number of remote communities including Barunga, also contacted us. Our task was to number the graves at Barunga cemetery and record biographical details of the deceased as told to us by community elders.</p>
<p>To ensure this information can be passed on to a local authority, we developed a map and recorded archaeological information about each grave, such as the ornaments left by family members.</p>
<p>The community of Barunga was established in 1951. Prior to that, Aboriginal people in this area were mostly hunter gatherers. Though traditional burial practices, like <a href="https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/1125509"><em>lorrkon</em></a> and rockshelter burials, persisted for many years after Aboriginal people moved into communities, over time cemeteries became the norm. We estimate that the first burials at Barunga occurred in the 1960s. People were wrapped in cloth or calico. Coffins came later. </p>
<p>This year we (and students from the <a href="https://barungafieldschool.wordpress.com/">Community Archaeology Field School</a>) recorded 174 graves. Only 25 of these have plaques identifying them as belonging to a particular individual. Our research team encompasses both university staff and people from the community, including Jasmine Willika, who is studying archaeology. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229378/original/file-20180726-106527-sy5xaj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229378/original/file-20180726-106527-sy5xaj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229378/original/file-20180726-106527-sy5xaj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229378/original/file-20180726-106527-sy5xaj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229378/original/file-20180726-106527-sy5xaj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229378/original/file-20180726-106527-sy5xaj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229378/original/file-20180726-106527-sy5xaj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229378/original/file-20180726-106527-sy5xaj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gary Jackson records a grave number on a star picket.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Claire Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first step is to number each grave and mark it with a star picket. We then visit the cemetery with community members, trying to identify who is in the unmarked graves. This complex process is repeated many times, with different people. They will likely remember recent deaths within their family, but after ten or so years it becomes harder to be sure that this person is in this exact grave, not the one next to it — or over a little.</p>
<p>Sometimes, one person’s memory will spark that of another. We record whom identified who with a particular grave. If the same identification occurs a number of times we feel secure in putting a name to it. This cross-checking is essential to the reliability of the data.</p>
<p>So far, we have identified 30 individuals using this process. That leaves 119 still unknown. After identification, we record a deceased person’s moiety, clan and kinship relationships.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229178/original/file-20180725-194131-1x91w6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229178/original/file-20180725-194131-1x91w6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229178/original/file-20180725-194131-1x91w6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229178/original/file-20180725-194131-1x91w6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229178/original/file-20180725-194131-1x91w6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229178/original/file-20180725-194131-1x91w6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229178/original/file-20180725-194131-1x91w6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229178/original/file-20180725-194131-1x91w6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vanessa Wakelin and Rusalka Rubio Perez record grave information on tablets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Dylan Benedetto</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is a challenge to catch everyone, as these are mobile communities. Though there is a small <a href="https://www.katherinetimes.com.au/story/4983111/barunga-store-opens-its-doors/#slide=4">shop at Barunga</a>, it’s expensive. People regularly go to Katherine to shop or deal with government agencies, or travel to other communities to visit relatives — or attend funerals. </p>
<p>We record the dimensions of the grave, its orientation and stylistic features on a tablet, in a form that has the capacity to act as a burial register. We hope to fill in some blanks with information from official death registers. If we are able to “bracket” a grave with the names of people on either side, we can cross-reference the death dates of those people with other community deaths registered at that time. However, it is too late to identify many of those buried in the early graves.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229169/original/file-20180724-194124-1iwyzoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229169/original/file-20180724-194124-1iwyzoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229169/original/file-20180724-194124-1iwyzoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229169/original/file-20180724-194124-1iwyzoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229169/original/file-20180724-194124-1iwyzoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229169/original/file-20180724-194124-1iwyzoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229169/original/file-20180724-194124-1iwyzoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229169/original/file-20180724-194124-1iwyzoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jordan Ralph, Antoinette Hennessy, Nell Brown, Rachael Kendino, Elizabeth Coleman, Claire Smith.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Gary Jackson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So far, we have only identified graves from their surface appearance. Our next step will be using ground-penetrating radar in the older parts of the cemetery. The ground in these sections is mostly flat. However, the radar can identify anomalies where earth has been disturbed. This will make it possible to respect individual graves, even if the people in them cannot be identified.</p>
<p>When our work at Barunga is completed there will be a recording system in place and a burial register managed by local Aboriginal people. This will help in planning the location of future graves. The community plans to place headstones on each grave, with those on unidentified graves perhaps identifying them as belonging to a Barunga elder.</p>
<p>We have also established a research group, called <a href="https://graveconcerns.org">Grave Concerns</a>, and plan to work in other communities, training Aboriginal people across the NT in recording graves.</p>
<h2>Burial practices in Barunga today</h2>
<p>Today, Aboriginal burial practices at Barunga include elements of both traditional and Christian belief systems. Usually, there is a Christian service in the <a href="https://australianindigenousministries.org.au/barunga/">Barunga church</a>.</p>
<p>It is normal practice for a dead person to be brought to the community the day before. The coffin is placed in a bough shelter built for the occasion. It is wrapped in yellow and red cloth. This complies with the cultural rule that the light colours of the Yirritja moiety should be joined with the darker colours of the Dhuwa moiety. During the night and in the morning, family members spend private time with the deceased.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229168/original/file-20180724-194158-1jmv7tb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229168/original/file-20180724-194158-1jmv7tb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229168/original/file-20180724-194158-1jmv7tb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229168/original/file-20180724-194158-1jmv7tb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229168/original/file-20180724-194158-1jmv7tb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229168/original/file-20180724-194158-1jmv7tb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229168/original/file-20180724-194158-1jmv7tb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229168/original/file-20180724-194158-1jmv7tb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People walking to the Barunga cemetery for the funeral of W. Willika in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Claire Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Barunga has a population of around 350 people. Virtually the entire community walks to the cemetery. People dress in black and white. At the grave, the songs are normally Christian, but Aboriginal in enactment. The songs are sung in <a href="http://maiaponsonnet.com/?p=375">Kriol</a>, accompanied by elegant hand and arm movements that expand on, or embody, their meanings. There may or may not be a pastor.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229182/original/file-20180725-194152-bslwtq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229182/original/file-20180725-194152-bslwtq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229182/original/file-20180725-194152-bslwtq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229182/original/file-20180725-194152-bslwtq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229182/original/file-20180725-194152-bslwtq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229182/original/file-20180725-194152-bslwtq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229182/original/file-20180725-194152-bslwtq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229182/original/file-20180725-194152-bslwtq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Close family members and friends of W. Willika prior to his burial at Barunga cemetery in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Matthew Ebbs</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Jasmine Willika, the quest to identify remote graves at Barunga is deeply personal. “This is my family, my blood,” she says.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My grandmother, Lilly Willika, was a very strong cultural woman. When I hear about her, I feel like I can follow in her footsteps. I have cultural knowledge passed down from her. That helps in doing archaeology. </p>
<p>Her grave is at Barunga cemetery, but I don’t know where. I want my children’s children to know where they can find my old grandmother and other family members.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><em>Photographs published with the permission of Traditional Owners and Custodians.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100456/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Smith's fieldwork at Barunga has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, the Ian Potter Foundation and Flinders University. In the response to the needs outlined in this article, she has established a research service through Flinders University, called Grave Concerns, to identify unmarked graves in remote Aboriginal communities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gary Jacksons is working with Claire Smith to provide a service to identify unmarked graves in remote Aboriginal communities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Ralph receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and Flinders University to support his research into modern material culture and graffiti in the Aboriginal community of Barunga, Northern Territory. He is working with Claire Smith to provide a service to identify unmarked graves in remote Aboriginal communities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jasmine Willika is working with Claire Smith to provide a service to identify unmarked graves in remote Aboriginal communities.</span></em></p>
In remote Northern Territory, most Aboriginal people have been buried in unmarked graves. Archaelogists are carrying out painstaking detective work to help communities find their loved ones’ remains.
Claire Smith, Professor of Archaeology, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University
Gary Jackson, Research Associate in Archaeology, Flinders University
Jordan Ralph, PhD Candidate, Archaeology, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95243
2018-05-24T08:51:13Z
2018-05-24T08:51:13Z
The Roman dead: new techniques are revealing just how diverse Roman Britain was
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220144/original/file-20180523-51121-1p3rbcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Museum of London</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Our knowledge about the people who lived in Roman Britain has undergone a sea change over the past decade. New research has rubbished our perception of it as a region inhabited solely by white Europeans. Roman Britain was actually a <a href="http://journals.upress.ufl.edu/bioarchaeology/article/view/671">highly multicultural society</a> which included newcomers and locals with black African ancestry and dual heritage, as well as people from the Middle East. </p>
<p>For the most part, these findings have been welcomed by public, and incorporated by museums into displays and educational content. But, post-Brexit referendum and in an atmosphere of growing nationalism, they have also been <a href="https://twitter.com/wmarybeard/status/893085666418073600">rejected and ridiculed</a>.</p>
<p>The research behind this dramatic change in our understanding comes from my field of bioarchaeology, a sub-field of archaeology which focuses on the study of human remains using a variety of techniques drawn from osteology and forensics. Bioarchaeology’s aim is to understand the lives of past people in context, combining data about their skeleton with information about the society in which they lived. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217752/original/file-20180504-166900-dsi5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217752/original/file-20180504-166900-dsi5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217752/original/file-20180504-166900-dsi5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217752/original/file-20180504-166900-dsi5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217752/original/file-20180504-166900-dsi5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217752/original/file-20180504-166900-dsi5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217752/original/file-20180504-166900-dsi5ls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who exactly are the Roman dead?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Museum of London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We can investigate further than ever before by looking at people’s diet and childhood origin using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotope_analysis">light stable isotopes</a>: naturally occurring chemicals in drinking water and food sources, which are used by the body to make bones and teeth. We also use new techniques in analysing ancient DNA to understand aspects of their physical appearance, diseases and population affiliation. The new perspective on Roman Britain that this research has uncovered is explored in the Museum of London’s <a href="https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/whats-on/exhibitions/roman-dead">latest exhibition</a>, which I helped curate.</p>
<hr>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mary-beard-is-right-roman-britain-was-multi-ethnic-so-why-does-this-upset-people-so-much-82269">Mary Beard is right, Roman Britain was multi-ethnic – so why does this upset people so much?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>People vs objects</h2>
<p>History is always subject to bias – what kind of bias and the scale of it just depends on the sources of evidence. There’s a dominance of male authored primary sources in the Roman period, for example, which distorts our perspective. One important source of information about the movement of people in the Roman period are inscriptions, particularly from tombstones. These show that people had come to Britain from the Mediterranean, France and Germany. But this heavily skews our understanding towards men, people with a military connection, and elites.</p>
<p>But skeletons provide a unique perspective on the society and environment in which a person lived. These factors shaped their health, and bones and teeth retain this evidence, revealing information such as where they spent their early childhood. These are datasets which are therefore independent of many sources of bias. Bioarchaeological studies of Roman-period skeletons have really challenged knowledge based upon traditional sources of archaeological evidence. </p>
<p>Take evidence from material culture, such as jewellery. In the past, when items with a continental origin were found in a burial, all too often a direct connection was made between the origin of these items and the person laid to rest. Take the unique burial of a 14-year-old girl in Southwark (London), whose grave goods included glassware and a carved ivory clasp knife in the shape of a leopard, rare items with connections to the wider empire. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220146/original/file-20180523-51095-gg1jyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220146/original/file-20180523-51095-gg1jyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220146/original/file-20180523-51095-gg1jyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220146/original/file-20180523-51095-gg1jyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220146/original/file-20180523-51095-gg1jyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220146/original/file-20180523-51095-gg1jyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220146/original/file-20180523-51095-gg1jyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Examples of Roman grave goods.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Museum of London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://www.pre-construct.com/Publications/Burials-in-southwark.htm">original site report</a> of the excavation suggested that the girl had come from Carthage, because of the leopard imagery and use of ivory. But intriguingly, later forensic ancestry, stable isotope and aDNA analyses <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/britannia/article/written-in-bone-new-discoveries-about-the-lives-and-burials-of-four-roman-londoners/F464D9E93FCE96341DDD7774C4C8CA10">revealed</a> that she grew up in the southern Mediterranean and then spent at least the last four years of her life in London. She had white European ancestry, blue eyes and the genetic group to which her maternal DNA belonged was HV6, which is found today in southern and eastern Europe.</p>
<p>This case – and there are many others like it – demonstrates the importance of applying new scientific techniques to help solve these important archaeological questions. It also challenges a traditional overreliance on material culture to explore migration.</p>
<p>Discerning information from most burials is not very straightforward, reflecting the adage that “the dead don’t bury themselves” – families and social groups also make choices about the deceased’s funeral. Similar cases have been found elsewhere in Roman Britain, particularly at settlements with military garrisons.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220147/original/file-20180523-51091-nh9558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220147/original/file-20180523-51091-nh9558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220147/original/file-20180523-51091-nh9558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220147/original/file-20180523-51091-nh9558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220147/original/file-20180523-51091-nh9558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220147/original/file-20180523-51091-nh9558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220147/original/file-20180523-51091-nh9558.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Model of the first bridge over the Thames (85-90AD) at the Museum of London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:London-Roman-model.jpg#/media/File:London-Roman-model.jpg">Steven G Johnson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Roman London</h2>
<p>In London, these questions become more difficult to answer. Informally established by traders and merchants around 48AD, five years after the Claudian invasion, Londinium soon became the heart of the Imperial administration for the territory. </p>
<p>Unlike many others in Britain, the majority of excavated burials in London either have locally or British-made objects or else none are present (wood and fabric rarely survive to discovery). And the few tombstones we have only survived because they were used to build the Medieval city wall.</p>
<p>In this situation, where many hundreds of people remain anonymous in death, bioarchaeology is the only way to understand the nuances of this unique population. Many of these anonymous people included women and children who had travelled as free people or as slaves, from Italy and Germany, as well as the southern Mediterranean. Only bioarchaeological methods allow us to unpack the true diversity of London’s population at this time. These methods have enabled us to show that people with black African ancestry travelled to and were born in London throughout the Roman period.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220093/original/file-20180523-51102-3t71k9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220093/original/file-20180523-51102-3t71k9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220093/original/file-20180523-51102-3t71k9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220093/original/file-20180523-51102-3t71k9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220093/original/file-20180523-51102-3t71k9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220093/original/file-20180523-51102-3t71k9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220093/original/file-20180523-51102-3t71k9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220093/original/file-20180523-51102-3t71k9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The skull of a woman buried in Southwark with curator Meriel Jeater.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Museum of London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have discovered, for example, that one middle-aged woman from the southern Mediterranean has black African ancestry. She was buried in Southwark with pottery from Kent and a fourth century local coin – her burial expresses British connections, reflecting how people’s communities and lives can be remade by migration. The people burying her may have decided to reflect her life in the city by choosing local objects, but we can’t dismiss the possibility that she may have come to London as a slave.</p>
<p>The evidence for Roman Britain having a diverse population only continues to grow. Bioarchaeology offers a unique and independent perspective, one based upon the people themselves. It allows us to understand more about their life stories than ever before, but requires us to be increasingly nuanced in our understanding, recognising and respecting these people’s complexities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95243/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Redfern works for Museum of London. </span></em></p>
New research has rubbished perceptions of Roman Britain as a region inhabited solely by white Europeans.
Rebecca Redfern, Honorary Research Associate, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87981
2017-11-22T20:09:05Z
2017-11-22T20:09:05Z
Who will bury Charles Manson?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195931/original/file-20171122-6035-1qdnthm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A tangle of rules govern what to do when a California inmate dies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Charles Manson, the wild-eyed cult leader <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/how-beatles-inspired-charles-manson-commit-his-1969-murders-716938">who claimed inspiration</a> for an apocalyptic race war from the Beatles’ “White Album,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/obituaries/charles-manson-dead.html">died</a> in Kern County, California, on Nov. 19 at the age of 83. </p>
<p>Journalist Joan Didion wrote that for many of her friends in Los Angeles, “the 60s ended abruptly on Aug. 9, 1969,” the day of the <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/charles-manson-dead-at-83-w458873">Tate-LaBianca murders</a>, in which Manson and his “family” killed seven people, including pregnant actor Sharon Tate.</p>
<p>While the cultural impact of Charles Manson’s life and horrific actions will not soon be forgotten, the pressing concern right now is how we’ll choose to acknowledge his death. More specifically, what will happen to his remains?</p>
<p>It’s a question that often comes up when a notorious criminal dies. Osama bin Laden, for example, was buried at sea, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.burial.at.sea/index.html">reportedly in part</a> so that a grave wouldn’t become a shrine for terrorists. </p>
<p>It turns out, however, that the answer is more complicated that it would appear at first glance, particularly when the death happens in a prison in California. I study funeral and cemetery law and also happen to be a licensed funeral director in California, yet I’m still surprised by the inconsistency in the state’s law governing death. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195935/original/file-20171122-6039-152rlhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195935/original/file-20171122-6039-152rlhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195935/original/file-20171122-6039-152rlhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195935/original/file-20171122-6039-152rlhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195935/original/file-20171122-6039-152rlhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195935/original/file-20171122-6039-152rlhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195935/original/file-20171122-6039-152rlhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The body of actress Sharon Tate is taken from her rented house on Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Aug. 9, 1969. Tate, who was eight months pregnant, was among those found murdered by Manson and his followers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>When a person dies in California</h2>
<p>When a person dies in California – regardless of where he or she lived – the state’s <a href="http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=HSC&division=7.&title=&part=1.&chapter=3.&article=">health and safety code</a> determines who has “the right to control the disposition of the remains of a deceased person, the location and conditions of interment and arrangements for funeral goods and services to be provided.” </p>
<p><a href="http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=HSC&division=7.&title=&part=1.&chapter=3.&article=">California law</a> grants that right to the following persons, in order of priority: a person appointed by the decedent, spouse, adult children, parents, adult siblings and other adults in the “next degrees of kinship.” </p>
<p>If a family member steps up, then the expense of the funeral and burial or cremation will be paid for by the decedent’s estate, if he or she left property. If the decedent died without property, then the family member bears the cost or could apply for an indigent assistance program like the one <a href="http://www.kernsheriff.com/documents/coroner/County_Cremation.pdf">offered in Kern County</a>, where Manson died.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195936/original/file-20171122-6016-1kbg04q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195936/original/file-20171122-6016-1kbg04q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195936/original/file-20171122-6016-1kbg04q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195936/original/file-20171122-6016-1kbg04q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195936/original/file-20171122-6016-1kbg04q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195936/original/file-20171122-6016-1kbg04q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195936/original/file-20171122-6016-1kbg04q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s possible that Manson’s body will end up on a hard, cold slab in a medical school.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Martha Irvine</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Calling all cadavers</h2>
<p>When a person dies in the state without any assets, which is almost certainly true of Manson, another law kicks in. </p>
<p>In those case, the <a href="http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=HSC&division=7.&title=&part=1.&chapter=4.&article=">state has the right</a> to send them to a medical school, chiropractic school or a mortuary science program to be used for scientific or educational purposes.</p>
<p>The majority of states have <a href="https://wfulawpolicyjournaldotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/culler_invisible_dead.pdf">statutes similar to this one</a>. When medical schools <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4582158/">began using cadavers</a> to teach future doctors in the 1700s, they had difficulty obtaining a sufficient supply of dead bodies from willing donors. As a result, grave robbery became a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/15/nyregion/new-york-mass-graves-hart-island.html">significant problem</a> in both the United States and Europe. Medical students were often tasked with obtaining cadavers on their own and would dig up fresh graves. </p>
<p>In response, the states began creating statutes in the mid-1800s that gave bodies that would otherwise be buried at public expense to medical schools. The idea was that supplying cadavers legally would destroy the incentive to commit grave robbery. That turned out to be correct, but as a result most states still have laws like the one in California, which can come as a shock. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195937/original/file-20171122-6039-1cj2an4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195937/original/file-20171122-6039-1cj2an4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195937/original/file-20171122-6039-1cj2an4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195937/original/file-20171122-6039-1cj2an4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195937/original/file-20171122-6039-1cj2an4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195937/original/file-20171122-6039-1cj2an4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195937/original/file-20171122-6039-1cj2an4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When inmates like those at Corcoran State Prison die, conflicting laws kick in that govern what happens to their remains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ben Margot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>When inmates die</h2>
<p>Manson died in a hospital while in the custody of the California Department of Corrections. A couple of specific laws apply to inmate deaths, and surprisingly those laws contradict each other and the general rules.</p>
<p>A Department of Corrections regulation states that every inmate <a href="https://govt.westlaw.com/calregs/Document/I009B5F10F2BD11E3AD09E1D84304E27A?viewType=FullText&originationContext=documenttoc&transitionType=CategoryPageItem&contextData=(sc.Default)">must annually identify</a> his or her next of kin on a form called “Notification in Case of Inmate Death.” </p>
<p>Assuming that Manson had one or more living family members and identified them on the notification form, then the department must attempt to notify the listed individual(s) in person, if practical, and, if not, by telephone and offer “consolation.” After 10 days, a body is deemed “<a href="http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=5061.&lawCode=PEN">unclaimed</a>.”</p>
<p>The rule, however, is inconsistent with the law regarding the rights of the next of kin to make decisions about disposition because it suggests that only the kin named on the notification form has rights.</p>
<p>The Department of Corrections has not indicated whether Manson actually completed this form or who his next of kin may be. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/obituaries/charles-manson-dead.html">According to The New York Times</a>, Manson was married twice. Both marriages ended in divorce. He was believed to have fathered at least two children, but The New York Times describes the subject of his descendants as one “which rumor and urban legend have long coalesced.” </p>
<p>The New York Daily News reported that the only self-identified descendant of Manson is 41-year-old <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/charles-manson-grandson-hopes-give-proper-burial-article-1.3647218">Jason Freeman</a>, the son of Charles Manson Jr., who committed suicide in 1993. Freeman <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/charles-manson-grandson-hopes-give-proper-burial-article-1.3647218">told the newspaper</a> that he was “going to move towards having a proper burial.”</p>
<p>It’s not clear, however, whether Manson, who had never met Freeman in person, listed him on his notification form. They reportedly had some telephone contact. </p>
<p>If Manson’s remains are not claimed by Freeman or another family member, then what will happen to his body? Although California law and the Department of Corrections regulation state that it should be made available for scientific study, <a href="http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&division=&title=7.&part=3.&chapter=2.&article=">a different California statute</a> requires unclaimed inmate remains to be buried or cremated.</p>
<p>Because of all this inconsistency, it’s unclear whether the law intended to give the family members of deceased inmates fewer rights than everyone else.</p>
<h2>Anonymous grave or anatomy lab</h2>
<p>Manson’s remains were last known to be in the possession of the Kern County coroner, according to <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-charles-manson-body-20171120-story.html">the Los Angeles Times</a>. </p>
<p>Even if Freeman was named in Manson’s notification form and claims him in a timely manner, he may still encounter some difficulty in obtaining a typical funeral and burial for his notorious grandfather. </p>
<p>After Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers believed to have committed the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, was killed by police, his uncle managed to locate a funeral home willing to handle the remains – amid picketing by the families of his victims – but had a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tanya-d-marsh/burying-tamerlan-tsarnaev_b_3215892.html">very difficult time finding a cemetery</a> willing to bury the remains. Eventually, Tsarnaev’s remains were removed from Massachusetts in the middle of the night and <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tsarnaev-burial-saga_b_3249151.html">interred in a Muslim cemetery</a> in Virginia.</p>
<p>So what does this all mean for Charles Manson? If Freeman can claim possession of the body, it’ll be up to him to find a funeral home willing to handle the mass murderer’s remains and potentially a graveyard or crematory willing to take them. If no other kin comes to light, an anonymous box of Manson’s remains may find a home at the communal crypt at <a href="http://www.bakersfield.com/news/county-pays-burial-costs-for-people-who-can-t-afford/article_36026592-ad33-5cb2-9e89-8186f9cac16d.html">Union Cemetery in Bakersfield</a>. </p>
<p>Alternatively, it’s very possible that medical students in California may find a familiar-looking cadaver in gross anatomy lab next semester.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya D. Marsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
If no one claims the remains of cult leader and killer Charles Manson, it’s unclear what will happen to his body. Will it find an anonymous California grave or face dissection in an anatomy lab?
Tanya D. Marsh, Professor of Law, Wake Forest University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/73822
2017-03-01T16:29:30Z
2017-03-01T16:29:30Z
Uncovered after 2,000 years: gold torcs fit for an Iron Age queen
<p>Found by two metal detectorists in a Staffordshire field, the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/02/28/iron-age-gold-found-farmers-field-earliest-ever-discovered/">Leekfrith torcs</a> are a spectacular example of late Iron Age jewellery and show just how skilled the pre-Roman inhabitants of Britain were in metalwork. But the torcs are not just beautiful and valuable objects, they also help archaeologists understand how Iron Age society worked. </p>
<p>Torcs were prehistoric bling, worn around the neck. As rigid pieces of jewellery they would have had to have been bent out of shape to put on and <a href="http://british.museumblog.org/how-do-you-put-on-a-torc/">then adjusted once worn</a>. Those found at Leekfrith are a rare and fantastic example of artistic skills that must have taken time and effort to produce – both indicators of their value and high status.</p>
<p>Hordes of torcs have often been found in Britain, with striking recent examples from <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225271/David-Booths-1m-gold-Stirlingshire-Amateur-treasure-hunter-finds-hoard-ancient-jewellery.html">Stirling</a> in Scotland and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/28/spectacular-bronze-age-gold-torc-unearthed-cambridgeshire-field">Cambridgeshire</a>. These would have been worn by powerful and wealthy men and and women as a symbol of their status. The very existence of torcs tells us a great deal about Iron Age society and how it was organised. For example, that gold torcs are found all over Britain and northern Europe indicates that there was trade between the elites of different regions, as gold sources are quite restricted. </p>
<p>The intricate decoration of torcs often shares certain artistic motifs, usually described as the <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/past_exhibitions/2015/celts.aspx">celtic</a> style and related to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/La-Tene-culture">La Tene culture</a> of late Iron Age Europe. As well as objects and art styles moving around Europe, evidence from burials shows that people may have moved from modern France to Britain during the Iron Age – so pre-Roman Europe was a rather connected society.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/87o-w0xCj7s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Highly skilled trade</h2>
<p>The skill required to make an intricate piece of jewellery such as a torc is learned over a lifetime of apprenticeship and practice – so it’s unlikely to have been a part-time job. This means that craftspeople would not have had time to farm their own food – the basic way of making a living in the Iron Age – and so they would have had to have been supported by others. </p>
<p>High ranking members of society would probably have ensured that collected food was distributed to the specialists they supported. And these elites may have also been the patrons of the metalworkers that did their goldwork for them. Seen like this, a golden torc on a Staffordshire hillside can reveal a lot about how societies worked and were structured in the past.</p>
<p>Experts often find it difficult to provide an accurate date when singular pieces of metalwork are found – hence the wide date range for the torcs estimated by the British Museum: <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-4267802/Iron-Age-gold-jewellery-buried-field-likely-worth-bob-two.html">400-250 BC</a>. However, we do know that throughout the late Iron Age, people were beginning to live in larger groups at hillfort sites like <a href="http://www3.hants.gov.uk/danebury/">Danebury</a> and <a href="http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/maiden-castle/history/">Maiden Castle</a>. Burial sites of very high status individuals have been found who were buried with impressive wealth. There is evidence – for example, at Hengistbury Head, Dorset – of <a href="http://www.visithengistburyhead.co.uk/Explore-learn-discover/archaeology.aspx">trade between Britain and Mediterranean societies well before the Roman civilisation</a> arrived at these so-called “barbarian” lands.</p>
<p>What this all points to is a society that was run by wealthy and powerful elites who displayed their status through the objects they wore. But the Staffordshire archaeologists have claimed that the Leekfrith torcs were buried on a hillside, with no associated burial or settlement remains – why is this so?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158956/original/image-20170301-5492-yayfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158956/original/image-20170301-5492-yayfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158956/original/image-20170301-5492-yayfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158956/original/image-20170301-5492-yayfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158956/original/image-20170301-5492-yayfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158956/original/image-20170301-5492-yayfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158956/original/image-20170301-5492-yayfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Statue of Queen Boudica who would have worn torcs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-dec-9-bronze-sculpture-by-350717819?src=YY15jncKJg8tVZmJGIAAnA-1-1">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Status symbols</h2>
<p>It could be that the torcs were buried for safekeeping in the middle of a tribal war, or there may have been a ritual or religious tradition in the Iron Age to bury valuable items. It’s possible that they were left as gifts for gods or natural deities but these deposits were usually made in watery places – the <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=831341&partId=1">Battersea Shield</a> and the <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1362722&partId=1">Waterloo Helmet</a> did not find their way into the River Thames by accident.</p>
<p>There would also have been a social as well as religious reason for this sort of activity – if people <em>see</em> you depositing your valuable jewellery, it is a way of showing your elite status and making others recognise it. The Leekfrith torcs represent a late Iron Age society that saw the rise of wealthy and powerful men and women. </p>
<p>These traditions would eventually give us the great warrior queens of the late Iron Age such as <a href="http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Boudica/">Boudica</a> of the Iceni in Suffolk, who burned Roman Colchester, London and St Albans to the ground, and <a href="http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Cartimandua-Cartismandua/">Cartimandua</a> of the Brigantes in what is now northern England – both at one time feared and respected by the Roman Empire. </p>
<p>Ultimately, activity such as this sent the message that you are so wealthy that you can easily afford to part with four gold torcs – there’s plenty more where they came from.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73822/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Edwards does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Torcs found in the Staffordshire hills can reveal a lot about Iron Age society.
Ben Edwards, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology & Heritage, Department of History, Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70121
2017-01-04T18:44:56Z
2017-01-04T18:44:56Z
Housing the dead: what happens when a city runs out of space?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150736/original/image-20161219-24265-l0saj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most of the major cemeteries in Australian cities, including Sydney's Waverley Cemetery, date back to the 1800s.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kate Ryan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Do you know where and how you want to be buried? </p>
<p>Will you choose an elaborate Victorian-style headstone, or do you prefer a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/australia-gps-graves_n_7190576">“green” burial</a>, with only a GPS tracking signal indicating your location? Or you may elect to purchase a <a href="https://urnabios.com/">Bios Urn</a>, a 100% biodegradable capsule you plant in the ground with cremated ashes and a seed of your choice which will one day grow into a tree.</p>
<p>Issues of mortality and access to burial space are not typically dinner party conversations or at the top of government agendas. And, until recently, its priority as a future challenge in planning has been virtually non-existent.</p>
<p>Sydney’s 2014 strategic plan, <a href="http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/Plans-for-Your-Area/Sydney/A-Plan-for-Growing-Sydney">A Plan for Growing Sydney</a>, recognises the need for studies of cemetery capacity and demand to identify future land requirements. Such studies are likely to reveal spatial variances across larger cities due to differences in age and religious and cultural communities.</p>
<p>The last major changes to the cemetery landscape in Australian cities <a href="http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/death_and_dying_in_nineteenth_century_sydney">occurred in the late 1800s</a>. At this time, the <a href="http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/learn/sydneys-history/people-and-places/old-sydney-burial-ground">crowded and unsanitary conditions</a> of churchyard burial grounds required the dedication of considerable burial land on what was once the urban fringe. </p>
<p>Many of these cemeteries continue to serve society’s burial needs. For the past century, there has been no pressing need to plan cities for the dead. It therefore comes as no surprise that consideration of a cemetery as essential public infrastructure has fallen through the cracks.</p>
<p>We have reached a point where this must change. The lifespans of existing cemeteries in major Australian cities are severely limited. In Sydney, according to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, the metropolitan region’s 310,000 to 330,000 available plots will likely <a href="http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/659594/cemeteries-and-crematoria-nsw-activity-report-2041-15.pdf">be exhausted by 2050</a>.</p>
<p>Annual numbers of deaths are predicted to double between 2011 and 2051. Despite a <a href="http://www.afr.com/business/cremation-favoured-in-tough-economy-20130903-je3o4">shift towards cremations</a> over the last century (Sydney’s <a href="http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/630623/cemeteries-and-crematoria-nsw-strategic-plan.pdf">cremation rate is 66%</a>), our cities’ diverse religious and cultural communities will always require space for burial.</p>
<p>This issue raises two important considerations. Where will we bury? And how will we bury? </p>
<h2>Where will we bury?</h2>
<p>At some 280 hectares, Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery is the <a href="http://www.rookwoodcemetery.com.au/about-us">largest cemetery in the southern hemisphere</a>. The allocation of such sizeable land only 15 kilometres from the CBD is unimaginable today. Equally as inconceivable is the location of <a href="http://www.waverleycemetery.com/">Waverley Cemetery</a>, which clings to the ocean cliffs of Sydney’s eastern suburbs. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151308/original/image-20161221-4093-1dbr34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151308/original/image-20161221-4093-1dbr34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151308/original/image-20161221-4093-1dbr34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151308/original/image-20161221-4093-1dbr34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151308/original/image-20161221-4093-1dbr34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151308/original/image-20161221-4093-1dbr34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151308/original/image-20161221-4093-1dbr34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151308/original/image-20161221-4093-1dbr34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Waverley Cemetery occupies a coastal site in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, the sort of location that simply isn’t available for a new cemetery today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kate Ryan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Significant barriers to cemetery development in urban areas include high land values, limited available land, restrictive zoning and a more pressing need to house the living. The landlocked nature of many existing cemeteries suggests no choice except for the dedication of additional land on the urban fringe. </p>
<p>Sydney has changed considerably since Rookwood Cemetery was established in 1868. While planners are continually rethinking how we design for housing, transport and employment to meet changing needs, we are yet to contemplate a new life for the cemetery landscape.</p>
<h2>How will we bury?</h2>
<p>The need to plan for the shortage of burial space presents a timely opportunity to reconsider how we bury. Recent <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjqv9DUgYTRAhVBH5QKHWzyAFAQFghOMAk&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnews%2Flatest-news%2Fgrave-recycling-laws-pass-nsw-parliament%2Fstory-fn3dxiwe-1226764671053&usg=AFQjCNElG50KhnoZPN5S_uWKOPjjcRs5OA">legislative changes</a> in NSW introduced provisions for the re-use of an older grave once the tenure period expires. Renewable tenure creates the opportunity to provide ongoing cemetery capacity. </p>
<p>Renewable tenure is uncommon in Australia. The majority of burial plots are still sold in perpetuity, meaning a grave remains untouched forever. </p>
<p>Have you ever considered that your grave could later become someone else’s? Would you buy a grave for you parents for a limited number of years, or would you choose a grave that you could visit for the rest of your life and your children’s lives? </p>
<p>These are difficult questions to ponder. Additionally, disturbing a personal and sacred space for the dead typically does not sit well with the public. A grave is often thought of as a “final resting place”. </p>
<p>An important question is whether the bereaved seek comfort in memorialising the deceased in perpetuity, or is a physical space for mourning only required for an initial period of time. Considering that grave visitations often cease after 40 to 50 years, is it reasonable to assume that the significance of a grave varies over time? </p>
<p>When the opinions of younger adults (aged 20-30) on grave re-use were surveyed by one of the authors, 72% of respondents indicated that they were unaware of this practice. However, respondents recognised links to several urban issues, including sustainable land consumption and growth pressures in cities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151311/original/image-20161221-4063-9diyte.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151311/original/image-20161221-4063-9diyte.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151311/original/image-20161221-4063-9diyte.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151311/original/image-20161221-4063-9diyte.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151311/original/image-20161221-4063-9diyte.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151311/original/image-20161221-4063-9diyte.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151311/original/image-20161221-4063-9diyte.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151311/original/image-20161221-4063-9diyte.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A natural burial park has been established in the grounds of the Catholic Kemps Creek Cemetery in Sydney’s west.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.sydneynaturalburialparks.com.au/">Sydney Natural Burial Park/Catholic Cemeteries and Crematoria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Respondents also expressed interest in other burial trends, such as <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/grave-new-world--natural-burials-coming-to-the-act-20150715-gicxib.html">natural burial</a> parks, where physical memorials are limited and the natural environment remains largely unaltered. Despite a discussion on burial practices, 68% said they wanted to be cremated. If cremation rates do rise in the future, this could essentially mean less urban land is needed for burials.</p>
<p>A conversation about burial preferences and new burial trends will improve understanding and provide direction on the future demand for burial land and the future form of the cemetery landscape.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Ryan is working as a town planning consultant on future cemetery developments in the Sydney metropolitan region.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Steinmetz-Weiss does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Most big city cemeteries in Australia date back to the 1800s, so we need to consider our burial options before we reach the point when the number of deaths exceeds the available cemetery plots.
Kate Ryan, Researcher, UNSW Sydney
Christine Steinmetz-Weiss, Associate Professor, School of Built Environment, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70465
2016-12-20T09:37:55Z
2016-12-20T09:37:55Z
Nine weird and wonderful facts about death and funeral practices
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150747/original/image-20161219-24296-n9nlpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pexels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It might not be something you want to think about very often, but it turns out that the way we treat our dead in the modern age is heavily influenced by the way our ancestors treated theirs.</p>
<p>When you look at death and funeral practices through the ages, repeated patterns of behaviour emerge, making it easy to see where some of our modern ideas about death – such as keeping an urn on your mantelpiece or having a gravestone – have come from. </p>
<p>So here are nine surprising facts about death and funeral practices through the ages:</p>
<h2>1. Some prehistoric societies defleshed the bones</h2>
<p>This was done with sharp knives. And we know this because human skeletons buried during this period show the traces of many <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3633135/Grisly-Stone-Age-pits-Orkney-islanders-chopped-dead-relatives-mixing-mass-graves.html">cut marks</a> to the skulls, limbs and other bones. </p>
<p>During the medieval period, bodies that needed to be transported over long distances for burial were also defleshed – by dismembering the body and boiling the pieces. The bones were then transported, while the soft tissues were buried close to the place of death.</p>
<h2>2. Throwing spears at the dead</h2>
<p>During the Middle Iron Age, “speared-corpse” burials were a pretty big deal in east Yorkshire. <a href="https://remembermeproject.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/the-speared-corpse-burials-of-iron-age-east-yorkshire/">Spears were thrown or placed into the graves</a> of some young men – and in a couple of instances they appear to have been thrown with enough force to pierce the body. It is unclear why this was done, but it may have been a military send-off – similar to the 21-gun salute at modern military funerals. </p>
<h2>3. The Romans introduced gravestones</h2>
<p>As an imported practice, the first gravestones in Britain were concentrated close to Roman military forts and more urbanised Romano-British settlements. </p>
<p>Back then, gravestones were more frequently dedicated to <a href="https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/">women and children than Roman soldiers</a>. This was most likely because Roman soldiers were not legally allowed to marry, so monuments to their deceased family members legitimised their relationships in death in a way they couldn’t be in life. </p>
<p>After the end of Roman control in Britain in the fifth century, gravestones fell out of favour and did not become widely popular again until the modern era.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150748/original/image-20161219-24265-tivwtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150748/original/image-20161219-24265-tivwtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150748/original/image-20161219-24265-tivwtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150748/original/image-20161219-24265-tivwtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150748/original/image-20161219-24265-tivwtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150748/original/image-20161219-24265-tivwtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150748/original/image-20161219-24265-tivwtl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Do as the Romans did.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. The Anglo Saxons preferred urns</h2>
<p>During the early Anglo-Saxon period, cremated remains were often kept within the community for some time before burial. We know this because <a href="https://www.academia.edu/29693509/Ethnographies_for_Early_Anglo-Saxon_Cremation">groups of urns were sometimes buried together</a>. Urns were also included in burials of the deceased – who were likely their relatives.</p>
<h2>5. Lots of people shared a coffin</h2>
<p>During the medieval period, many parish churches had <a href="http://wasleys.org.uk/eleanor/churches/england/yorkshire/east_riding/east_two/howden/index.html">community coffins</a>, which could be borrowed or leased to transport the deceased person from the home to the churchyard. When they arrived at the graveside, the body would be removed from the coffin and buried in a simple shroud. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150749/original/image-20161219-24299-7h8170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150749/original/image-20161219-24299-7h8170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150749/original/image-20161219-24299-7h8170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150749/original/image-20161219-24299-7h8170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150749/original/image-20161219-24299-7h8170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150749/original/image-20161219-24299-7h8170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150749/original/image-20161219-24299-7h8170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sharing’s caring?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>6. And rosemary wasn’t just for potatoes</h2>
<p>Sprigs of rosemary were often carried by people in the funeral procession and cast onto the coffin before burial, much as roses are today. And as an evergreen plant, rosemary was associated with eternal life. As a fragrant herb, it was also often placed inside coffins to <a href="https://nourishingdeath.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/rosemary-thats-for-remembrance/">conceal any odours that might be emerging from the corpse</a>. This was important because bodies often lay in state for days and sometimes weeks before burial, while preparations were made and mourners travelled to attend the funeral. </p>
<h2>7. Touching a murderer could heal</h2>
<p>Throughout early modern times, and up until at least the mid 19th century, it was a common belief that the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4623855/">touch of a murderer</a> – executed by hanging – could cure all kinds of illnesses, ranging from cancer and <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Goitre/Pages/Introduction.aspx">goitres</a> to skin conditions. Afflicted persons would attend executions hoping to receive the “death stroke” of the executed prisoner. </p>
<h2>8. There are still many mysteries</h2>
<p>For almost a thousand years, during the British Iron Age, archaeologists don’t really know what kinds of funeral practices were being performed across much of Britain. And human remains only appear in a few places – like the burials in east Yorkshire. So for much of Britain, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-prehistoric-society/article/div-classtitleiron-age-burial-in-southern-britaindiv/D617DE25F4F6814D343B498B3DC21631">funeral practices are almost invisible</a>. We suspect bodies were either exposed to the elements in a practice known as “excarnation”, or cremated and the ashes scattered.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150753/original/image-20161219-24284-943j4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150753/original/image-20161219-24284-943j4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150753/original/image-20161219-24284-943j4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150753/original/image-20161219-24284-943j4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150753/original/image-20161219-24284-943j4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150753/original/image-20161219-24284-943j4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150753/original/image-20161219-24284-943j4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rosemary: a funeral herb.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>9. But the living did respect the dead</h2>
<p>Across time, people have engaged with past monuments to the dead, and it is common for people to respect older features of the landscape when deciding where to place new burials. </p>
<p>Bronze Age people created new funeral monuments and buried their dead in close proximity to Neolithic funeral monuments. This can be seen in the landscape around Stonehenge, which was created as an ancestral and funeral monument – and is full of Bronze Age burial mounds known as <a href="http://web.org.uk/barrowmap/">round barrows</a>. </p>
<p>And when the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain, they frequently buried their dead close to Bronze and Iron Age monuments. Sometimes they dug into these older monuments and reused them to bury their own dead. </p>
<p>Even today, <a href="http://www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk/find-a-funeral-director/what-is-a-green-funeral/">green burial grounds</a> tend to respect preexisting field boundaries. And in at least one modern cemetery, burials are placed in alignment with medieval “ridge and furrow”. These are the peaks and troughs in the landscape resulting from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridge_and_furrow">medieval ploughing</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvonne Inall receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>
Thankfully, defleshing bones has fallen out of fashion.
Yvonne Inall, Research Assistant in Archaeology, University of Hull
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.