text: Interment of the dead is a practice that is at least 100,000 years old, possibly older. 
  Perhaps it began as a hope that human life would echo the pattern of the natural world in the vegetative cycle (a motif we still use to explain our modern spirituality: "unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies...") or the natural world of animal reproduction where the earth is identified with the womb (a motif we also still use to explain our modern spirituality: born again). 
  There are other dignified methods of treating dead bodies w/respect-some of great antiquity.Consider the urnfield culture which practiced cremation and interment of the ashes -which the CDF recommends. Stripping the bones and consuming the flesh of the dead. Sky burial. Maybe even Freeze Drying?
  Is it just a quirk of history that the Jews of Jesus's time practiced burial? Would our story, practice,& belief be different if they practiced cremation and scattering, and Jesus rose from the ashes rather than the tomb?