are as old as the human race itself. Every culture and
civilization has attended to the proper care of their dead. Every human culture
ever studied has three common threads for death and the disposition of their dead:
1) Some type of ceremony, funeral rite, or ritual
2) A sacred place for the dead
3) Memorials for the dead
Researchers have found burial grounds of Neanderthal man dating to 60,000 BC
with animal antlers on the body and flower fragments next to the corpse indicating
some type of ritual and gifts to the deceased.
With no great intellect or customs,the Neanderthal man instinctively buried their
dead with ritual and ceremony. This may suggest that Neanderthals believed in an
afterlife, but were at least capable of mourning, and were likely aware of their own
mortality.
The most ancient and universal, of funeral monuments, were simple and natural,
consisting of a mound of earth, or a heap of stones, raised over the ashes or body
of the deceased.
Some primitive people exposed corpses in the open, in trees or on platforms.