newstrom@newstaffinc.com (Harvey Newstrom) writes:
> Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> wrote:
> > Doesn't exactly explain the situation during the stone age. Why bury
> > flowers with the dead? Did somebody sell them?
>
> Actually, the answer might be as simple as putting good smelling flowers
> to cover the bad smelling dead body.
Far too few, and the point is that they were *buried* with them - that would have fixed the odor.
> Buring the tools with the dead also might have a simple explanation.
> The default mode was to keep a person's possessions with the person. It
> would be natural to keep their tools with the dead body. It would take
> a higher level of reasoning to decide that they didn't need the tools
> anymore. We shouldn't question why tools were buried with the dead, as
> if this were an exceptional thing to do. I think this would have been
> the normal procedure, and the custom of not burying the tools with the
> dead became the new exception later on.
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