Related News
Taking food to funeral makes us human
Source: Agencies |
September 1, 2010, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
REMAINS of the earliest known feast in a cave in Israel show that humans have been bringing food to funerals for millennia and suggest that burial feasts may have helped shape modern society.
Researchers found the remains of cooked tortoises and wild cattle called aurochs alongside the grave of a high-status woman, perhaps a shaman, at a site in the Galilee dating back 12,000 years.
The people living there at the time were known as Natufians. They didn't quite progressed to farming but had settled down.
"Feasts likely served important roles in the negotiation and solidification of social relationships, the integration of communities, and the mitigation of stress," anthropologist Natalie Munro of the University of Connecticut and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"We believe that feasts, especially in funerary contexts, served to integrate communities by providing this sense of community," Munro said.
Funerals probably date back farther than this but because the Natufians were beginning to settle down, in a dry area, the evidence is clear, the researchers said.
Researchers found the remains of cooked tortoises and wild cattle called aurochs alongside the grave of a high-status woman, perhaps a shaman, at a site in the Galilee dating back 12,000 years.
The people living there at the time were known as Natufians. They didn't quite progressed to farming but had settled down.
"Feasts likely served important roles in the negotiation and solidification of social relationships, the integration of communities, and the mitigation of stress," anthropologist Natalie Munro of the University of Connecticut and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"We believe that feasts, especially in funerary contexts, served to integrate communities by providing this sense of community," Munro said.
Funerals probably date back farther than this but because the Natufians were beginning to settle down, in a dry area, the evidence is clear, the researchers said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
