When Did Humans Start Having Funerals?

There was never a first funeral that archaeologists can point to. What they can find are graves, and from the graves they infer ceremonies. This timeline shows the oldest evidence, from the most disputed to the most secure.

What is the timeline?

From oldest to youngest:

• About 240,000 years ago: Homo naledi (disputed). Aeon reports that in 2023 a team led by Lee Berger proposed that this species buried its dead in a cave system in South Africa. It calls it one of the most controversial claims in the field.
• Up to about 120,000 years ago: Eurasia. The Max Planck Society says burials of Neanderthals and modern humans in Eurasia go back as far as 120,000 years.
• About 100,000 years ago: Qafzeh Cave, Israel. Aeon calls this the first widely accepted intentional burial. Fifteen early modern humans were placed in the earth with 71 pieces of ochre and stone tools.
• About 78,000 years ago: Panga ya Saidi, Kenya. Science News dates the toddler Mtoto’s grave to about 78,300 years ago, Africa’s oldest known intentional burial.
• 74,000 to 58,000 years ago: Border Cave, South Africa. An infant found in 1941 was once cited as Africa’s earliest burial. The Conversation says it is hard to describe the evidence as unequivocally a burial.
• About 69,000 years ago: Taramsa, Egypt. The Conversation lists it among the early African burials.
• About 65,000 to 35,000 years ago: Shanidar Cave, Iraq. Ten Neanderthal skeletons found in 1960 appear to have been intentionally buried, according to Aeon.

What counts as a “funeral”?

Archaeologists cannot see ceremonies. They look for clues: a dug pit, a deliberate posture, red ochre, and objects placed with the body. Smithsonian Magazine reports that the Qafzeh burials included red ochre, which may have been used in a burial ritual. The toddler at Panga ya Saidi was curled into the fetal position in a shallow grave.

Were funerals always burials?

No. The Conversation says that at Herto in Africa, before about 80,000 years ago, people seem to have defleshed and kept remains. Burial seems to have become more common after that.

How do we know the dates?

By dating the bones and the layers around them, and the dates are revised as methods change. Science News reports that the Mtoto burial was dated at about 78,300 years ago, pushing back the known date for burial in Africa by a few thousand years. Expect dates in this article to change as new sites are found.

Where can I read more?

See Why Do Humans Bury Their Dead? for what the evidence suggests about meaning, Funerals in Ancient Greece and Rome for later history, and How Have Funerals Changed Over the Last 100 Years?.