Beliefs About Death

Humans everywhere are conscious of and have beliefs about death, the conditions that may bring it about, and the consequences of it. The beliefs may or may not have factual validity. Archaeological evidence of these beliefs is seen in treatment of the dead from very early human remains and is widespread. Considerable speculation links the anxieties occasioned by a consciousness of death that is generally considered to be uniquely human with the origins and development of beliefs in the supernatural and, especially, with beliefs in an afterlife or rebirth.