Thursday, 7 February 2013

What's that smell?

Last anth of death class had my prof discussing cremation. She mentioned that experimental archaeologists will often use pigs for recreating cremations as they are relatively similar to humans. This instantly (and disturbingly) had me wondering if people smelled tasty like pigs whilst being cremated.


A quick google search revealed this article from slate.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2007/03/barbyou.html

Apparently I won't have an appetite for human any time soon.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Alex,
    A friend of mine did a pig cremation in Scotland a while back - it was an interesting experiment. http://erinsanth397.blogspot.ca/2012/03/paul-pig-roast.html

    I rather wish I could have been there, but I did find myself wondering about the smells too....

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's a neat experiment. I particularly enjoyed the ode to the pig. I'd assume people would be aware which portions of the body would burn slower and maybe add more fuel to the fire near those portions in order to not have left over flesh.

    Perhaps the anth department should throw a BBQ sometime...

    ReplyDelete