Forest Burials
- Thread starter TeeDee
- Start date
Good shout for the Sustainability Centre. It’s not far from here and where both my parents wish to be interred in cardboard coffins. It’s also lovely it’s almost right on The South Downs Way, an ancient path.
Five years ago there were rumblings about the UK setting up it's own body farm. Still seems to not have happened.
www.dailymail.co.uk
Forensic expert slams the UK's failure to set up a human 'body farm'
A UK human body farm could help put murderers behind bars and stop them from killing again, says a forensic expert formerly at Staffordshire University in Stoke-on-Trent.
Five years ago there were rumblings about the UK setting up it's own body farm. Still seems to not have happened.
Forensic expert slams the UK's failure to set up a human 'body farm'
A UK human body farm could help put murderers behind bars and stop them from killing again, says a forensic expert formerly at Staffordshire University in Stoke-on-Trent.
Not any official ones anyway...
< Bwahhahahahahahhahah!!! >
I was gonna make one of those "I've been burying bodies in the woods for years" kinda gags, but thought better of it...
As we all know comedy can be very subjective.
"One mans meat etc " ( attributed to J.Dahmer.)
I read an account of a family's view of the body farm where their mother had been deposited.
One son exclaiming with glee that a vulture was eating Mom's ribs! was not happy reading.
It kind of left me with the same kind of squick that I felt when I first read of the Dohkma exposure.
No opprobium about it, just that it somehow triggers something uneasy in me.
I think it's such a very personal thing how we deal with death. Everyone has their own baggage, so to speak.
I just want it as simple and easy as possible for my family. I would prefer 'green', and as unpoluting as possible, a healthy burial/cremation, if I make myself clear ?
M
One son exclaiming with glee that a vulture was eating Mom's ribs! was not happy reading.
It kind of left me with the same kind of squick that I felt when I first read of the Dohkma exposure.
No opprobium about it, just that it somehow triggers something uneasy in me.
I think it's such a very personal thing how we deal with death. Everyone has their own baggage, so to speak.
I just want it as simple and easy as possible for my family. I would prefer 'green', and as unpoluting as possible, a healthy burial/cremation, if I make myself clear ?
M
It is a bit grim isn't it - but it's OK for the worms to eat ee up (if ee don't go and fetch thy hat) but not the vultures? 
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See, there's the rub. I am not prey. I refuse to be prey, and that's a very human thing/ attitude. The men who steal from lions, etc., kind of thing. Determined, won't be.
Maybe that's why the vultures aren't getting me
Excarnation has a very long provenance, but usually the air burials are guarded. The bones are collected, not dropped occasionally, still partially fleshed, over unsuspecting citizens living near the Dohkma.
Just not my thing.
I'm an archaeologist. I have dealt with the bones of the dead. They crumble, they wear and shrivel. Certainly in our soil here.
That I can live with (hah! ) but my nightmare is that what is left of me is preserved for eternity with no way to return to the earth, to the cycle of life.
Egypt's tombs horrify me.
M
Maybe that's why the vultures aren't getting me
Excarnation has a very long provenance, but usually the air burials are guarded. The bones are collected, not dropped occasionally, still partially fleshed, over unsuspecting citizens living near the Dohkma.
Just not my thing.
I'm an archaeologist. I have dealt with the bones of the dead. They crumble, they wear and shrivel. Certainly in our soil here.
That I can live with (hah!
) but my nightmare is that what is left of me is preserved for eternity with no way to return to the earth, to the cycle of life.Egypt's tombs horrify me.
M
I know that a lot of the research was on the timing of the decay as well as the evidences left, and on the differences it made if the body were clothed, unclothed, shallow buried, deep buried, etc.,
It can be quite fascinating.
@TeeDee, well, yes and no. That stuff was once animated humanity with all the emotions attached thereto.
I love and am loved, I don't think I could handle with any serenity seeing my husband or my sons corpses be treated with anything but carefulness. I don't think they could with me either.
Sorry, I don't quite know how to make myself any clearer. As I said, it's an emotional thing.
From an archaeology background I know that for as long as humanity has considered itself to be 'people', and whether that people be HSS or HSN, they buried their dead with care.
Red lady of Paviland is an example from long before even farming reached these shores. Upper Palaeolithic, c33,000 years ago, iirc.
It appears that often the bones of the previous generations were used as a kind of validation for ownership of land, of belonging. Tomb of the eagles, perhaps.
In Catal Huyuk they buried their dead beneath their floors and lived above them. Their houses rose slowly layer by layer on the debris of past generations to create Tells.
We don't seem to have done that here. We have neolithic cremations here where the bones were placed in large urns and buried. Cairns, barrows and the like are commonplace enough across these isles too. 5,000 years ago one was established at Forteviot for instance.
It's the only certainty in life; that we die. The surprising thing is that for the untold millions of people born who lived, there are remarkably few remains left.
M
It can be quite fascinating.
@TeeDee, well, yes and no. That stuff was once animated humanity with all the emotions attached thereto.
I love and am loved, I don't think I could handle with any serenity seeing my husband or my sons corpses be treated with anything but carefulness. I don't think they could with me either.
Sorry, I don't quite know how to make myself any clearer. As I said, it's an emotional thing.
From an archaeology background I know that for as long as humanity has considered itself to be 'people', and whether that people be HSS or HSN, they buried their dead with care.
Red lady of Paviland is an example from long before even farming reached these shores. Upper Palaeolithic, c33,000 years ago, iirc.
It appears that often the bones of the previous generations were used as a kind of validation for ownership of land, of belonging. Tomb of the eagles, perhaps.
In Catal Huyuk they buried their dead beneath their floors and lived above them. Their houses rose slowly layer by layer on the debris of past generations to create Tells.
We don't seem to have done that here. We have neolithic cremations here where the bones were placed in large urns and buried. Cairns, barrows and the like are commonplace enough across these isles too. 5,000 years ago one was established at Forteviot for instance.
It's the only certainty in life; that we die. The surprising thing is that for the untold millions of people born who lived, there are remarkably few remains left.
M
Personally I believe the actual place where you take your last breath is more important than the final resting place of your decomposing biological matter. (or ashes) but what happens post mortem to your remains is more for the living than for the deceased.
I made the decision some time ago that should I develope a cancer or some other terminal desease I would not seek treatment & continue up to the point where life would be impossible & then chose a place, outdoors of course, & end it on my terms. Hopefully it would be months if not years, before my rotting carcass would be found.
I know our deaths are never as we planned & I just hope I can avoid kicking the bucket in a hospital, it is difficult to imagine a more banal & soulless ending & I've never come to terms with being a statistic.
Prehaps I'm shelfish but I can't say I've ever given a thought about my funeral, however I'm always on the look out for a good place to die.
I made the decision some time ago that should I develope a cancer or some other terminal desease I would not seek treatment & continue up to the point where life would be impossible & then chose a place, outdoors of course, & end it on my terms. Hopefully it would be months if not years, before my rotting carcass would be found.
I know our deaths are never as we planned & I just hope I can avoid kicking the bucket in a hospital, it is difficult to imagine a more banal & soulless ending & I've never come to terms with being a statistic.
Prehaps I'm shelfish but I can't say I've ever given a thought about my funeral, however I'm always on the look out for a good place to die.
Nice sentiment.
Only issue I can see with it is that one may not possess a robust enough , capable enough ability to GET to those kind of wonderful places once one starts feeling their life force ebb away.
Or indeed, be in a suitable mental state to remember where you hid the bottle of Conium maculatum
Who was the fellow who decided to do just that when his cancer returned. Walked into the forest, put his back agin a tree and just didn't wake up again ?
Thing is, that's such an honest way, real, for him to deal with it, but it'd be a hellish shock for the poor blighter that found him.
Thing is, that's such an honest way, real, for him to deal with it, but it'd be a hellish shock for the poor blighter that found him.
