Excarnation

In archaeology and anthropology, the term excarnation (also known as defleshing) refers to the practice of removing the flesh and organs of the dead before burial.

Excarnation may be achieved through natural means, such as leaving a dead body exposed to the elements or for animals to scavenge; or by butchering the corpse by hand.

[7] When human bones exhibiting signs of flesh removal are discovered in the fossil record, a variety of criteria can be used to distinguish between the two.

[7][8] Pot polishing refers to the smoothing and beveling that is observed in bones that have come into contact with the abrasive inner surface of a cooking vessel.

[9] 160,000 years ago, Homo sapiens idaltu in the Awash River Valley (near present-day Herto village, Ethiopia) practiced excarnation.

[2] The Parsis in Mumbai maintain a hilltop reserve, the Doongerwadi forest, in Malabar Hill with several Towers of Silence.

[13] Archaeologists believe that in this practice, people typically left the body exposed on a woven litter or altar.

However, in ancient Japanese society, prior to the introduction of Buddhism and the funerary practice of cremation, the corpse was exposed in a manner very similar to the Tibetan sky burial.

The Moriori people of the Chatham Islands placed their dead in a sitting position in the sand dunes looking out to sea; others were strapped to young trees in the forest.

Air burials were practiced throughout the Great Plains by many different societies, including the Comanche,[4] the Blackfeet, the Sioux, the Dakota,[5] the Cheyenne, the Mandans, and the Crow.

[14] Additionally, elevating remains protected the bodies from being eaten by wolves and allowed a way to manage disease when burial was not possible, like in the winter when the ground was too hard.

[17] Neolithic farmers living in Tavoliere, Italy, over 7000 years ago, practiced ritual defleshing of the dead.

[18] In Europe during the Middle Ages and early modern period, defleshing was a mortuary procedure used mainly to prepare human remains for transport over long distances.

This was intended to preserve his bones, to avoid decay of the remains during their return to France from the Eighth Crusade, and to provide relics.