“Here death isn’t so final.” By Paul Koudounaris.

Ayahuasca was a sacred medicine. Now it’s a global ‘it’ drug, and the trendiness is threatening the source. By Marina Lopes.

A type of burial used 5,000 years ago is available again as families mourning loved ones seek a better way of doing death. By Maev Kennedy. (Oct. 26, 2016)

The 9,000-year-old tool shows that Mesolithic people had sophisticated burial rituals and even cremated their dead. By Jason Daley.

Wolfshäger Hexenbrut tanzt “Schüttle deinen Speck” von Peter Fox

It's a culture, not a costume. By Michael Gardiner.

An interview with Thomas Laqueur about his book The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains. By Timothy Shenk. (Mar. 10, 2016)

[Warning: Disturbing, graphic, morbid] “The idea of your body being taken apart and flown into the air in a million different directions is really, really powerful ….” — Caitlin Doughty.

A new law in New York State allows funeral parlors to serve light refreshments and nonalcoholic drinks, joining 46 other states that allow some eating and drinking during services. By Sarah Maslin Nir.

Sleeping next to a corpse, even that of a loved one, was a ritual I had long been dreading. Instead of bringing closure, it seemed a particularly cruel and gothic way to bring even more sorrow to a grieving family. By Shihoko Goto.

The many precautions people have taken to keep corpses in their graves. By James Close. (May 18, 2016)

Using a language-based family tree and statistical methods developed by evolutionary biologists, we were able to model how human sacrifice and social inequality evolved in the prehistory of Austronesia. By Joseph Watts.

Cultures the world over have found ways to preserve the dead in almost any environment. By Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato. (Jan. 18)

So you want to marry a ghost. In some societies, it's possible—with a few caveats. Posthumous marriage—that is, nuptials in which one or both members of the couple are dead—is an established practice in China, Japan, Sudan, France, and even the United States...By Ella Morton.