The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life

by Sheldon Solomon

Alternatively, agriculture may have arisen, or been abetted, as an unintended consequence of burial practices. By this account, advanced by science writer and novelist Grant Allen in his 1897 The Evolution of the Idea of God, digging graves tilled the soil and got rid of weeds. Burying the best grains (along with other grave goods) with the corpses was the first planting of seeds; the decaying flesh may incidentally have provided fertilizing nutrients for the seeds. When new plants grew on the grave site the next year, people likely attributed their good fortune to the goodwill of their ancestors or the gods with whom they were believed to be dwelling. Eventually they would have figured out that seeds, sans corpse, would suffice to grow food.