Did Ancient People Die Young?
Many of us believe our ancestors lived much shorter lives than we do. Cutting-edge archaeology shows otherwise.
Death
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The Weird, Wild World of Mortuary Customs
Embalming is just one among the world’s wide variety of funeral practices, and in a sense it’s as ordinary as any other. Then again, it’s pretty strange.
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Grief Can Make Us Wise
Grief makes sense of loss and opens us to rebuilding all that is meaningful in life. Society would benefit if public grief were acknowledged more.
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The Death of a Hungry God
The electrocution of a wild elephant in a village in northeast India illustrates how these formidable beings are experienced as both animal and deity.
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The Chinese History That Is Written in Bone
The bones of 3,000-year-old sacrificial victims in China are revealing unexpected new twists.
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Why Do So Many People Want to Die?
A veteran scholar contemplates the origins of the peculiarly human phenomenon of suicide.