Excarnation

Last updated
Zoroastrian Towers Of Silence are examples of excarnation. Annual report of the Bureau of ethnology to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1881) (14782082584).jpg
Zoroastrian Towers Of Silence are examples of excarnation.

In archaeology and anthropology, the term excarnation (also known as defleshing) refers to the practice of removing the flesh and organs of the dead before burial. Excarnation may be achieved through natural means, such as leaving a dead body exposed to the elements or for animals to scavenge; or by butchering the corpse by hand. Following excarnation, some societies retrieved the excarnated bones for burial. [1] Excarnation has been practiced throughout the world for hundreds of thousands of years. The earliest archaeological evidence of excarnation is from the Awash River Valley in Ethiopia, 160,000 years ago. [2] Examples of excarnation include "sky burials" in parts of Asia, the Zoroastrian "Tower of Silence", and Native American "tree burials". Excarnation is practiced for a variety of spiritual and practical reasons, including the Tibetian spiritual belief that excarnation is the most generous form of burial [3] and the Comanche practical concern that in the winter the ground is too hard for an underground burial. [4] [5] Excarnation sites are identifiable in the archaeological record by a concentration of smaller bones (like fingers or toes), which would be the bones that would be the easiest to fall off the body, and that would not be noticed by practitioners of excarnation. [4]

Contents

Methodology

Identification of excarnation

From the pattern of marks on some human bones at prehistoric sites, researchers have inferred that members of the community removed the flesh from the bones as part of its burial practices. [6] [1]

Since metatarsals, finger bones and toe bones are very small, they would easily fall through gaps in a woven structure or roll off the side during this removal. Thus a site where only small bones are found is suggestive of ritual excarnation.

Distinguishing excarnation from cannibalism

Archaeologists seeking to study the practice of ritual excarnation in the archeological record must differentiate between the removal of flesh as a burial practice, and as a precursor to cannibalism. [7] When human bones exhibiting signs of flesh removal are discovered in the fossil record, a variety of criteria can be used to distinguish between the two. One common approach is to compare the tool marks and other cuts on the bones with butchered animal bones from the same site, with the assumption that cannibalized humans would have been prepared like any other meat, whereas excarnated bodies would be prepared differently. Cannibalized bones, in contrast to excarnated bones, may also exhibit telltale signs such as human tooth marks, broken long bones (to facilitate marrow extraction), and signs of cooking, such as "pot polishing". [7] [8] Pot polishing refers to the smoothing and beveling that is observed in bones that have come into contact with the abrasive inner surface of a cooking vessel. [9]

By region

Africa

Ethiopia

160,000 years ago, Homo sapiens idaltu in the Awash River Valley (near present-day Herto village, Ethiopia) practiced excarnation. [2]

Asia

India

The Parsis in Mumbai maintain a hilltop reserve, the Doongerwadi forest, in Malabar Hill with several Towers of Silence. [10] Due to a decline in vultures in India (due to changes in animal husbandry practices) the traditional excarnation practice has faced pressure to evolve while still serving the same purpose, so the trustees of the reserve introduced solar concentrators at the towers. [11] [12] Other scavenger birds play a part but are not as efficient as vultures. [12]

Tibet

A Tibetan sky burial Skeletonskyburial.jpg
A Tibetan sky burial

Practices making use of natural processes for excarnation include Tibetan sky burials. [13] Archaeologists believe that in this practice, people typically left the body exposed on a woven litter or altar. Following excarnation, the litter with its remains would be removed from the site.

Japan

In modern Japan, where cremation is predominant, it is common for close relatives of the deceased to transfer, using special chopsticks, the remaining bones from the ashes to a special jar in which they will be interred. However, in ancient Japanese society, prior to the introduction of Buddhism and the funerary practice of cremation, the corpse was exposed in a manner very similar to the Tibetan sky burial.

Pakistan

The Kalash people of Pakistan until recently (mid 1980s) practiced above ground burial in large wooden coffins called Bahg'a where the dead were laid with all their best belongings in cemeteries called Madokjal or place of many coffins. This tradition had been dying off with the last being the burial of a shaman in 1985, until the burial in 2016 of Batakeen of Anish village Bumburet.

Indonesia

The Bali Aga people of Trunyan village on Lake Batur in Bali practice customs found no where else on the island. These are the mountain Balinese, and they practice Animistic traditions that predate the arrival of Hinduism in Bali. The burial custom here is for the bodies to be laid on the ground and left to decompose, with a cloth cover or a bamboo cage. Once the decomposition is complete, the bones are placed on a stair shaped altar 500 feet to the north. A large banyan tree known as taru menyan (literally translated as "nice smelling tree") is thought to take away bad smells.

Pacific

Hawaii

Pre-contact Hawaiians ritually defleshed the bones of high-ranking nobles (ali'i) so that they could be interred in reliquaries for later veneration. The remains of Captain Cook, who the Hawaiians had believed to be the god Lono, were treated this way after his death.

New Zealand

The Moriori people of the Chatham Islands placed their dead in a sitting position in the sand dunes looking out to sea; others were strapped to young trees in the forest. In time, the tree grew into and through the bones, making them one.

North America

Great Plains

Tree burial of a Sioux chief Funeral scaffold of a Sioux chief 0044v.jpg
Tree burial of a Sioux chief

Air burials (also known as tree burials) are a form of secondary burial, where a body is placed above ground either in a tree or on scaffolding. After an extended period of time (months to years) the remains are excarnated and buried underground. Air burials were practiced throughout the Great Plains by many different societies, including the Comanche, [4] the Blackfeet, the Sioux, the Dakota, [5] the Cheyenne, the Mandans, and the Crow. [14] Air burials were practiced for both spiritual and practical reasons. Some tribes, like the Sioux and the Lakota, believed that elevating remains would better facilitate a spirit's journey outside of their body. [14] Additionally, elevating remains protected the bodies from being eaten by wolves and allowed a way to manage disease when burial was not possible, like in the winter when the ground was too hard. [4] Lastly, some nomadic groups had specific burial grounds that they only visited once a year. [4] These groups used air burial to care for the dead while waiting to return to their burial grounds.

Due to the temporary nature of air burials and because scaffoldings were made out of perishable materials, like wood, air burials leave behind little archaeological evidence. Thus much of the evidence of air burials come from ethnographic sources. However, some archaeological sites have been discovered where archaeologists believe excarnation occurred as remains were transfer from the primary air burial to their final resting place or to a secondary air burials site. These sites are identifiable by a concentration of smaller bones (like fingers or toes), which would be the bones that would be the easiest to fall off the body, and that would not be noticed by practitioners of excarnation. [4]

After colonization, the U.S. government made air burial illegal, as it conflicted with the nation's Christian ideals. [14] However, in recent years, air burial has been allowed on reservation, leading to a small number of people returning to the practice of air burial. [15]

Pacific Northwest

Canoe burials were a primary form of burial among the Chinookan-speaking tribes of the Columbia River. Bodies would be wrapped in blankets and placed inside a canoe with personal items. Wealthier families would sometimes top the burial canoe with a second, larger canoe to keep out the rain. The canoe(s) would then be placed in a tree. [14]

In 1830, Chinook chief Comcomly died and was buried via canoe burial at a family burial ground. [16]

Europe

Britain and Ireland

There is evidence of excarnation in Britain and Ireland during the Neolithic, whereby bodies would be left to decompose in an open-air mortuary enclosure, on an excarnation platform, or in a sealed cave, before the bones were deposited elsewhere. [17]

Italy

Neolithic farmers living in Tavoliere, Italy, over 7000 years ago, practiced ritual defleshing of the dead. Light cut marks suggest that the bones were defleshed up to a year after death. The bones were deposited in Scaloria Cave and, when excavated, were mixed with animal bones, broken pottery and stone tools. [18]

Germany

A practice known as mos teutonicus , or active excarnation, was a German custom. The bodies were broken down differently than solely defleshing, they were cut up and boiled in either wine, water, or vinegar. [19]

Other examples

In Europe during the Middle Ages and early modern period, defleshing was a mortuary procedure used mainly to prepare human remains for transport over long distances. The practice was used only for nobility. It involved removing skin, muscles, and organs from a body, leaving only the bones. In this procedure, the head, arms, and legs were detached from the body. The process left telltale cuts on the bones.

One notable example of a person who underwent excarnation following death was Christopher Columbus.[ citation needed ] The American Revolutionary War general, Anthony Wayne, also underwent a form of excarnation. [20]

King Saint Louis IX of France is said to have been defleshed by boiling his corpse until the flesh separated from the bones. This was intended to preserve his bones, to avoid decaying of the remains during their return to France from the Eighth Crusade, and to provide relics. [21]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burial</span> Ritual act of placing a dead person into the ground

Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objects in it, and covering it over. A funeral is a ceremony that accompanies the final disposition. Evidence suggests that some archaic and early modern humans buried their dead. Burial is often seen as indicating respect for the dead. It has been used to prevent the odor of decay, to give family members closure and prevent them from witnessing the decomposition of their loved ones, and in many cultures it has been seen as a necessary step for the deceased to enter the afterlife or to give back to the cycle of life.

A mortuary enclosure is a term given in archaeology and anthropology to an area, surrounded by a wood, stone or earthwork barrier, in which dead bodies are placed for excarnation and to await secondary and/or collective burial. There are some parallels with mortuary houses although the two are the products of different cultural practices and traditions regarding the treatment of the dead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pyre</span> Form of cremation

A pyre, also known as a funeral pyre, is a structure, usually made of wood, for burning a body as part of a funeral rite or execution. As a form of cremation, a body is placed upon or under the pyre, which is then set on fire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tower of Silence</span> Zoroastrian excarnation structure

A dakhma, also known as a Tower of Silence, is a circular, raised structure built by Zoroastrians for excarnation, in order to avoid contamination of the soil and other natural elements by the decomposing dead bodies. Carrion birds, usually vultures and other scavengers, consume the flesh. Skeletal remains are gathered into a central pit where further weathering and continued breakdown occurs.

The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology. The Middle Paleolithic broadly spanned from 300,000 to 50,000 years ago. There are considerable dating differences between regions. The Middle Paleolithic was succeeded by the Upper Paleolithic subdivision which first began between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. Pettit and White date the Early Middle Paleolithic in Great Britain to about 325,000 to 180,000 years ago, and the Late Middle Paleolithic as about 60,000 to 35,000 years ago. The Middle Paleolithic was in the geological Chibanian and Late Pleistocene ages.

The Issedones (Ἰσσηδόνες) were an ancient people of Central Asia at the end of the trade route leading north-east from Scythia, described in the lost Arimaspeia of Aristeas, by Herodotus in his History (IV.16-25) and by Ptolemy in his Geography. Like the Massagetae to the south, the Issedones are described by Herodotus as similar to, yet distinct from, the Scythians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charnel house</span> Structure for storage of human bones

A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a place filled with death and destruction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sky burial</span> Funeral practice

Sky burial is a funeral practice in which a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decompose while exposed to the elements or to be eaten by scavenging animals, especially carrion birds like vultures and corvids. It is a specific type of the general practice of excarnation. It is practiced in the Chinese provinces and autonomous regions of Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Inner Mongolia, as well as in Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan, and parts of India such as Sikkim and Zanskar. The locations of preparation and sky burial are understood in the Vajrayana Buddhist traditions as charnel grounds. Comparable practices are part of Zoroastrian burial rites where deceased are exposed to the elements and scavenger birds on stone structures called Dakhma. Few such places remain operational today due to religious marginalisation, urbanisation and the decimation of vulture populations.

Disposal of human corpses, also called final disposition, is the practice and process of dealing with the remains of a deceased human being. Disposal methods may need to account for the fact that soft tissue will decompose relatively rapidly, while the skeleton will remain intact for thousands of years under certain conditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures</span> Ritualistic killing of humans in pre-Colombian cultures

The practice of human sacrifice in pre-Colombian cultures, in particular Mesoamerican and South American cultures, is well documented both in the archaeological records and in written sources. The exact ideologies behind child sacrifice in different pre-Colombian cultures are unknown but it is often thought to have been performed to placate certain gods.

Cowboy Wash is a group of nine archaeological sites used by Ancestral Puebloans in Montezuma County, southwestern Colorado, United States. Each site includes one to three pit houses, and was discovered in 1993 during an archaeological dig. The remains of twelve humans were found at one of the pit house sites, dating to the 12th century.

Mos Teutonicus was a postmortem funerary custom used in Europe in the Middle Ages as a means of transporting, and solemnly disposing of, the bodies of high-status individuals. Nobles would often undergo Mos Teutonicus since their burial plots were often located far away from their place of death. The process involved the removal of the flesh from the body, so that the bones of the deceased could be transported hygienically from distant lands back home.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minoan religion</span> Prehistoric belief system

Minoan religion was the religion of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization of Crete. In the absence of readable texts from most of the period, modern scholars have reconstructed it almost totally on the basis of archaeological evidence of such as Minoan paintings, statuettes, vessels for rituals and seals and rings. Minoan religion is considered to have been closely related to Near Eastern ancient religions, and its central deity is generally agreed to have been a goddess, although a number of deities are now generally thought to have been worshipped. Prominent Minoan sacred symbols include the bull and the horns of consecration, the labrys double-headed axe, and possibly the serpent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cannibalism in the Americas</span> History of human cannibalism in the Americas, especially Mesoamerica

Cannibalism in the Americas has been practiced in many places throughout much of the history of North America and South America. The origin of the term "cannibal" comes from the Island Caribs, who were encountered by Christopher Columbus in the Bahamas. Numerous cultures in North America were reported by European explorers and colonizers to have engaged in cannibalism, however these claims are not always reliable since the Spanish used them as part of their justifications for conquest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleolithic religion</span> Religions thought to have appeared during the Paleolithic time period

Paleolithic religions are a set of spiritual beliefs and practices that are theorized to have appeared during the Paleolithic time period. Paleoanthropologists Andre Leroi-Gourhan and Annette Michelson believe unmistakably religious behavior emerged by the Upper Paleolithic, before 30,000 years ago at the latest, but behavioral patterns such as burial rites that one might characterize as religious — or as ancestral to religious behavior — reach back into the Middle Paleolithic, as early as 300,000 years ago, coinciding with the first appearance of Homo neanderthalensis and possibly Homo naledi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religion and ritual of the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture</span>

The study of the religion and ritual of the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture has provided important insights into the early history of Europe. The Cucuteni–Trypillia culture inhabited the present-day southeastern European nations of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine during the Neolithic and Copper Ages. It left behind many settlement ruins that contain archaeological artifacts attesting to their cultural and technological characteristics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herxheim (archaeological site)</span> Archaeological site in Germany

The archaeological site of Herxheim, located in the municipality of Herxheim in southwest Germany, was a ritual center and a mass grave formed by people of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) culture in Neolithic Europe. The site is often compared to that of the Talheim Death Pit and Schletz-Asparn, but is quite different in nature. The site dates from between 5300 and 4950 BC. The site contained the scattered remains of more than 1000 individuals from different, in some cases faraway regions. Whether they were war captives or human sacrifices is unclear, but the evidence indicates that they were roasted and consumed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fontbrégoua Cave</span> Cave and archaeological site in southern France

Fontbrégoua Cave is an archaeological site located in Provence, Southeastern France. It was used by humans in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, in what is now known as the Early and Middle Neolithic. A temporary residential site, it was used by Neolithic agriculturalists as a storage area for their herds of goats and sheep, and also contained a number of bone depositions, containing the remains of domestic species, wild animals, and humans. The inclusion of the latter of these deposits led the archaeological team studying the site to propose that cannibalism had taken place at Fontbrégoua, although other archaeologists have instead suggested that they represent evidence of secondary burial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Secondary burial</span> Feature of certain prehistoric grave sites

The secondary burial, or “double funeral” is a feature of prehistoric and historic gravesites. The term refers to remains that represent an exhumation and reburial, whether intentional or accidental.

References

  1. 1 2 Booth, Thomas; Bruck, Joanna (2020). "Radiocarbon and histo-taphonomic evidence for curation and excarnation of human remains in Bronze Age Britain" (PDF). Antiquity. 94 (377): 1186–1203. doi:10.15184/aqy.2020.152. hdl:1983/b0e52b84-8d38-4419-92a0-1be5ff8cd1fc. S2CID   224969196.
  2. 1 2 Clark, J. Desmond; Beyene, Yonas; WoldeGabriel, Giday; Hart, William K.; Renne, Paul R.; Gilbert, Henry; Defleur, Alban; Suwa, Gen; Katoh, Shigehiro; Ludwig, Kenneth R.; Boisserie, Jean-Renaud; Asfaw, Berhane; White, Tim D. (June 2003). "Stratigraphic, chronological and behavioural contexts of Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia". Nature. 423 (6941): 747–752. Bibcode:2003Natur.423..747C. doi:10.1038/nature01670. PMID   12802333. S2CID   4312418.
  3. ↑ "How Sky Burial Works". 25 July 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Millar, J. F. V. (1981). "Mortuary Practices Of The Oxbow Complex". Canadian Journal of Archaeology. 5 (5): 103–117. JSTOR   41058605 – via JSTOR.
  5. 1 2 Yarrow, H. C. (1881). A further contribution to the study of the mortuary customs of the North American Indians. Government Printing Office, Washington: First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80. p. 158.
  6. ↑ Barber, Paul (1989). Vampires, Burial and Death: Folklore and Reality. New York: Yale University Press. pp. 171–72. ISBN   0-300-04859-9.
  7. 1 2 Scott, G. Richard; McMurry, Sean (2014). "The Delicate Question: Cannibalism in Prehistoric and Historic Times". An Archaeology of Desperation: Exploring the Donner Party's Alder Creek Camp. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN   978-0-8061-8552-1.
  8. ↑ "Beyond Stone and Bone » Criteria for Cannibalism". archive.archaeology.org. Archaeology Magazine. Retrieved 2018-06-06.
  9. ↑ "Cannibalism: living things that eat the flesh of their own kind". University of Florida. Retrieved 2023-09-26.
  10. ↑ "Parsis take to cremation, solar desiccation of bodies". The Asian Age. 23 Dec 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  11. ↑ Markandya, Anil; Taylor, Tim; Longo, Alberto; Murty, M.N.; Murty, S.; Dhavala, K. (2008). "Counting the cost of vulture decline –An appraisal of the human health and other benefits of vultures in India" (PDF). Ecological Economics. 67 (2): 194–204. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.04.020. hdl: 10036/4350 . Vultures do not play a role spiritually per se, but are recognised for their practical utility in aiding the disposal of corpses. ... the solar concentrations will produce heat of 120 degrees Celsius, which is sufficient to turn a body into a skeleton in 3 days.
  12. 1 2 Hannon, Elliot (5 September 2012). "Vanishing Vultures A Grave Matter For India's Parsis". WBUR. Retrieved 2 February 2020. "To dehydrate the body faster, the trustees introduced solar concentrators to focus heat. But during the monsoon season, the solar concentrators don't work because of the clouds." The solution isn't perfect—the solar concentrators can only work on several bodies at a time—but it has helped keep the tradition alive.
  13. ↑ Kapstein, Matthew T. (2014). "Funeral customs". Tibetan Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 99–100. ISBN   978-0-19-973512-9. LCCN   2013006676.
  14. 1 2 3 4 "101 Indians: Sky burials". Daily Kos. 23 July 2020.
  15. ↑ "Native American Burial Rituals ep205". Coroner Talk. 2019-02-04. Retrieved 2022-03-01.
  16. ↑ "Concomly's Tomb | Discovering Lewis & Clark". www.lewis-clark.org. 18 August 2021. Retrieved 2022-03-01.
  17. ↑ Fowler, C. (2010). Pattern and diversity in the Early Neolithic mortuary practices of Britain and Ireland: contextualising the treatment of the dead. Documenta Praehistorica, 37. pp.1–22
  18. ↑ Shaw, Garry (27 March 2015). "Stone-age Italians defleshed their dead". Science . AAAS . Retrieved 27 March 2015.
  19. ↑ Interacting with the dead : perspectives on mortuary archaeology for the new millennium. Rakita, Gordon F. M. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 2005. ISBN   0-8130-2856-6. OCLC   60742129.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  20. ↑ Hugh T. Harrington and Lisa A. Ennis. "'Mad' Anthony Wayne: His Body Did Not Rest in Peace". History of Erie County, Pennsylvania, vol. 1. pp. 211–12. Warner, Beers & Co., Chicago. 1884.
  21. ↑ Westerhof, Danielle (2008). Death and the Noble Body in Medieval England. Boydell Press. ISBN   978-1-84383-416-8.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.