Summary of Irving Finkel's The First Ghosts

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#1 The earliest known evidence of the belief in ghosts is from the third millennium bc, when a clay tablet was found that contained the word ghost. However, we must suspect ghostly presences that existed much earlier than this.

#2 The first examples of simple inhumation, the deliberate creation of a space in which to deposit and cover a corpse, are only evident after ~120,000 BP. Down to ~60,000–50,000 BP, a good number of early Homo sapiens burials are known in the Middle East and Europe that pre-date the known Neanderthal burials of the same geographical areas.

#3 The first burial of flowers at Shanidar Cave, Iraq, was publicized in 1971. However, the excavators later found that the flowers were actually clumps of pollen grains. The first burial of flowers was actually done by Neanderthals.

#4 There are three strands of human belief that are implied by burial with goods: something survives of a human being after death, that something escapes the grasp of the corpse and goes somewhere, and that something, if it goes somewhere, can reasonably be expected to be able to come back.

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