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From

From Malcolm Moore, Rotorua, New Zealand

When it comes to the rise of burial practices, the basic needs for species are survival and reproduction. That means food, shelter and security. Dead bodies attract scavengers. For a vulnerable hominin species like Homo naledi who, for a period at least, stayed in one place, decaying bodies could have attracted carnivores(26 July, p 38).

Safe burial or the building of cairns, for example, requires suitable terrain and available resources, such as labour, efficient digging tools and time. Disposal in the far reaches of a cave system would be relatively quick and effective. Dehydration or breakdown by microbes and small animals would soon follow.

So, the pragmatic issue of safe disposal comes first, and rituals then develop as a way of maintaining this through the generations. These then become embedded in religions.