La nature des rituels funéraires

Abstract

Faced with the inevitable absurdity of near nothingness, human societies have developed metaphysical protections, made “true” by a traditional consensus ensuring the solidarity of the living. These social explanations have become the guarantee, both for rules of existence as for those of death: therefore, they are intangible. In terms archaeological studies, we observe both universal evolutionary trends and traditional features. Structurally, the relationships between life and death have constant analogies, specific to the human mind and in all circumstances, as if it there was only one view of the disappearance of life. Rituals express these two tendencies: general and particular, focused on the continuous axis of time.