There’s something extremely perverse about “luxury coffins”. Thousands and thousands of dollars for an impenetrable box to dump in a hole that you can’t even rot in because your corpse is so saturated with preservatives. It’s like a sick joke.
Or a future archeologist’s goldmine.
But a modern ecologist’s nightmare.
I mean I get it but also. The sheer amount of information we’ve been able to glean from these kinds of Extra burials (i.e., Pascal’s tomb, the pyramids, even the Valley of the Kinds) is staggering and SO valuable. Even just old cemeteries and mass graves. It isn’t a cut-n-dry issue.
I think we should also leave people alone to deal with something as personal as their own death. Especially as it’s so wrapped up in cultural, religious, and moral context that you can’t just tell people “hey we’re gonna burn you/turn you to liquid/whatever newfangled methods.”
Me @ modern ecologists and future archaeologists: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
The future archeologists would win because they’re from the future and have advanced technology
Future archaeologists might not exist if modern ecologists fail to push sustainable reform.
I fall solidly on the side of the archaeologists here. And the historians who will be gloating over all the material. And the anthropologists who would have so much more information to work with when trying to understand our world and our cultural practices. Generally, I don’t think our burial practices are too disruptive to ecosystems, seeing as they’re contained within specific spaces set aside to house the dead, but obviously, I could be wrong.
You know that all people die, and that there are more being born every day, and that each one will die eventually, right? We are continuously getting new corpses in need of disposal, but we are not getting more land in which to bury them. We regularly unearth old graveyards to build new things, but only recently (post Civil War) have we been creating problem corpses pumped full of gallons of extremely toxic preservatives. These preservatives do not prevent decay – they merely slow it down for entirely aesthetic purposes, so that people can have prettier and more leisurely open-casket funerals. Formaldehyde and other chemicals may be washed out into the surrounding ecosystem during floods and pose health risks to embalmers and anyone hoping to repurpose modern cemeteries. Pesticides and lawnkeeping for expansive graveyards is wasteful, expensive, and toxic, creating dangerous chemical runoff that wrecks havoc on aquatic ecosystems in particular – golf courses pose a similar problem. Conventional burials involve large hardwood coffins treated with even more toxic chemicals, and most also require concrete vaults to be placed underneath for extra stability.
For the entirety of human history, nearly everyone has received a “green” burial. Even the mummification process in Ancient Egypt can be considered “green”, and huge tombs were reserved for a select few. Up until very recently, even in the west, grave sites were routinely reused, and corpses largely allowed to decompose and like other organic material without releasing strong poisons into the ground. Catacombs and charnel houses provided efficient storage space for large numbers of bodies at once.
Not only are modern embalmed burials not traditional, they are virtually barren of useful information to archaeologists. Again: your body will still rot, it’ll just do so will a side of pollution. We do not bury our dead with any signifiers of individuality or culture, beyond a nice suit and maybe some jewelry. If you’ve ever studied archaeology, you’ll know that ancient burial sites are valued because they contain thousands of cultural artifacts, not just corpses – artifacts such as jewelry, weapons, tools, offerings, and other indications of status, role, relationships, etc. We… don’t. Putting someone in a silk-lined wood casket wearing a nice dress and sensible earrings is not remotely comparable to burying them with the tools of their trade, the bones of their cat, protective talismans, chieftain’s jewelry, and/or a mural describing their cultural beliefs about the afterlife. Tombstones exposed to the elements are often worn down in barely a century and contain little information about the deceased. Lastly, there are millions and millions of corpses already in the ground. Our massive population means that we will have more bodies to dispose of than our ancestors. These hypothetical future archaeologists whose careers you prioritize over the planet’s health will likely find that our current burial standards, if not altered, will be a great nuisance by preventing productive land use.
Whatever terrifying scenario you’re imagining in which current civilization has collapsed and cultural information stored in books and technology is lost, and historians are forced to gloat over anonymous bones, I don’t want to know. I just want to avoid it by ensuring that, culturally, we recognize the importance of adopting sustainable practices in all corners of life as much as possible. Conservation of natural resources and reduction of ecological harm is the best way to ensure those archaeologists will actually be born in the first place. Burials are a relatively small example of the changes that need to be made for the sake of a desirable future, but an important one. Embalming is not necessary or healthful, and sustainable alternatives to hardwood luxury caskets exist – it’s all about moving away from the norms of excess.
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just moving along like everyone else 