DR JUN.-12
In 1612, the English philosopher Francis Bacon mused that adults fear death no less than children fear the dark. “And as that natural fear in children is increased with tales,” he remarked, “so is the other.” Our modern apprehensions surrounding death continue to be nourished by depictions of tormenting, mournful transitions into the abyss—just as in Bacon’s era. “Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, shew death terrible,” he observed. Yet, for Bacon, such dread is ultimately unproductive, even illusory: “It is as natural to die as to be born.”
Still, one must ponder—what transpires when death is no longer final, when its conclusion is rendered ambiguous by persistence beyond the grave? What do we make of fears not solely confined to the act of dying, but extending into dread of the once-dead? In the centuries predating Bacon’s contemplations, such fears permeated the European psyche, catalyzed by proliferating tales of interred corpses returning to inhabit the world of the living. The bubonic plague, which may have extinguished over 25 million lives during the 14th century, precipitated a surge in narratives recounting the risen dead. By the 16th and 17th centuries, Europe was saturated with stories of predatory vampires and wrathful revenants, roaming the night with insatiable hunger.
In modernity, these once-dreaded entities now serve primarily as narrative scaffolds within popular entertainment. Consider the undying antagonists populating 19th-century gothic literature, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) to John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819). Reflect also upon the ghoulish protagonists haunting the serialized penny dreadfuls, notably Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood (1845–47), an expansive horror saga chronicling the sanguinary pursuits of Sir Francis Varney. The undead then achieved cinematic immortality in 20th-century productions, inaugurated by Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922).
I once accepted that our cultural imagination of the undead stemmed primarily from medieval and early modern European traditions. However, upon encountering records of Neolithic burials where cadavers were restrained with stones—ostensibly to inhibit their resurgence—I began to question this genealogical narrative. Might these fears be far more ancient than previously assumed?
Even in the 21st century, archaeologists are unearthing what funerary archaeologist Anastasia Tsaliki has termed the “Archaeology of Fear”—evidence that suggests deep-seated trepidations about the dead have long inhabited the substrata of European prehistory. These fears, inscribed not merely in folklore but into ancestral bone and earth, indicate that humanity’s apprehension toward the dead transcends Bacon’s simple equivalence of dying and birthing. For most of human history, it may have been just as "natural" to fear the deceased.
Archaeological data increasingly hints that such terror predates written history, embedded deep within prehistoric consciousness. To unravel why our early ancestors feared the dead, we must begin with the history of intentional burial. Only through the examination of interred remains—graves, tombs, and other mortuary constructs—can we attempt to reconstruct prehistoric anxieties. Yet, this history is far from straightforward. While burial’s widespread emergence is now roughly delineated, scholars still ardently debate its precise origins.
One particularly contentious hypothesis posits that Homo naledi, a hominin species, may have practiced intentional burial as far back as 240,000 years ago. This idea gained traction in 2023 when paleoanthropologist Lee Berger and his team reported unearthing fifteen Homo naledi skeletons within South Africa’s Rising Star cave system. They assert that these remains display “a consistent pattern of differentiation,” implying deliberate interment. Nevertheless, skeptics challenge this interpretation, citing insufficient sedimentological corroboration for intentionality. A third perspective speculates that the bodies were posthumously dragged into the cave, later buried via geological deposition. Research at Rising Star continues to evolve.
Difficult Word Meanings:
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Obsequies: funeral rites or ceremonies
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Revenants: people who return, especially from the dead
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Proliferating: increasing rapidly in number
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Sanguinary: involving or causing much bloodshed
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Sedimentological: relating to the study of natural sediment deposits
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Interment: the act of burying a corpse
- Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 16
- Word Count: 598
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