Chance or Burial?
Discovering a fossilized skeleton does not automatically mean that it is a burial. The body may have ended up there accidentally. One strong indication that the deceased was intentionally buried is the presence of funerary offerings.
A funerary offering is an object or consumable item placed alongside a deceased person. It may consist of personal adornments, food, beverages, weapons, or any other meaningful item. These post-mortem gifts reflect a desire to assist or appease the deceased. The oldest known burials containing some form of funerary offering date back 100,000 years. They were discovered at the site of Skhul, in present-day Israel.
Flowers are likely the oldest and most universal funerary offerings. A Neanderthal burial at Shanidar, dating back more than 50,000 years, revealed the presence of a bed of flowering plants. Millennium after millennium, human beings would continue to place flowers on the graves of their dead.
Feeding the Dead
Foodstuffs are among the most common funerary offerings found in ancient burials. Foods and beverages were carefully selected for their nourishing and regenerative properties, as well as for their cultural significance. Depending on the place and period, these might include honey, milk, beer, wine, and many other substances. Staple grains associated with major civilizations played a central role in such offerings: wheat in the Near East and the West, millet and sorghum in Africa, rice in Asia, and maize in the Americas. The provisions placed in tombs were intended to restore the deceased by providing strength and warmth during the journey to the afterlife.
In some cultures, feeding the dead also serves to ensure that, once fully satisfied, they leave the world of the living for good and are not tempted to return. Satisfying and appeasing the deceased through food offerings are therefore genuine concerns—a kind of pact between the living and the dead.
A Wealth of Grave Goods
A wide variety of personal objects—such as arrows, spears, knives, and jewelry made from shells and animal teeth—are also common funerary offerings. Some objects found in burials suggest that cultural exchanges took place between distant regions. Beyond providing evidence of trade, these items also reflect a desire to offer the deceased rare objects that were likely of considerable value.
Remarkably, cultures separated by thousands of years—and by thousands of kilometres—shared the same concern for providing their dead with a fitting accompaniment. Both Egyptian tombs dating back 3,000 years and fifteenth-century Inca burials have yielded rich grave goods: lamps and incense burners, plates, small dishes, vases, jugs, and jewellery formed a kind of “dowry” for the journey to the afterlife.
Published in Profil - Spring 2026
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In this column, historian Catherine Ferland, PhD, author of the book 27 faits curieux sur la mort, d’hier à aujourd’hui, explores a variety of themes drawn from her book over the course of the series.
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