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Timothy Taylor

The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death Hardcover – Import, 2002

by Timothy Taylor (Author)

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Do cannibals exist? Is there evidence for contemporary human sacrifice? What are vampires? The Buried Soul charts the story of the human response to death from prehistory to the present day. This book is a radical adventure into the sepulchral world.--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Taylor's entertaining, if grisly, interpretative history turns the raw gleanings of two centuries of archaeology on their head. Referencing his own experience, as well as others' documented discoveries, he expounds on the pervasiveness of such practices as funerary cannibalism, vampirism, and human sacrifice, and he poses the question, Which came first, the notion of the soul or the ceremonial burial of remains? His conclusions, as he acknowledges, may be somewhat unsettling. Caches of bones, pottery shards, and tools reveal only the most basic clues, and the majority of archaeologists, filtering those clues through their modern "visceral insulation" from things pertaining to death, are, by Taylor's lights, unable to acknowledge how prevalent cannibalism and ritual sacrifice were and are. Furthermore, while widespread popular thought maintains that humans acquired belief in the soul first and then developed ritual burial, Taylor considers the reverse to be more accurate: the immortal soul was invented as a result of the first burial ceremonies. Taylor demonstrates, albeit in highly scholarly style, the value of postulating well-developed, opposing points of view. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Blazingly smart and deeply human.--Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Cadavers

"Taylor makes sense of the ghastly and the seemingly insensible-African muti killings, human sacrifice, vampires, and triple-killed bog bodies. Archaeology was never so entertaining, and entertainment never so edifying. There is not a trite thought or lazy idea in this book."--Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

"The Buried Soul is an extraordinary immersion experience . . . I had always supposed that archeology was as dry as the dust and bones it traffics in, as pedestrian as the catalogs it compiles. On the contrary, when expounded by a masterly storyteller like Taylor, it resembles psychoanalysis at its best . . . I haven't space to illustrate how ingeniously Taylor assembles his interpretations, patiently working out the barely intelligible motives and beliefs of the creatures who became us . . . Wherever else you travel, you should consider a trip into 'deep time' with The Buried Soul."--George Scialabba, Boston Globe

"Learned and impassioned . . . the lesson of Mr. Taylor's unsparing book is that . . . for most of human history, our attempts to deal with death-to appease it, master it, or simply make sense of it-have been deeply irrational and often cruel. More than any other human experience, death makes us savage."--Adam Kirsch, New York Sun

"Absorbing and challenging . . . The Buried Soul is vast, ambitious, and contentious. It ranges over two million years, from a cut-marked skull of Homo habilis to the death of a young man in 2000."--Katherine Ashenburg, American Scholar --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product details

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Fourth Estate; First Edition edition (2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781857026962
ISBN-13: 978-1857026962
ASIN: 1857026969
Package Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
Average Customer Review: 8 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,137,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4730 in Sociology of Death (Books)
- #26739 in Archaeology (Books)

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Fascinating Approach

July 17, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Mr Taylor brings up a substantial academic baggage of analytic tools in this veritably surprising book. Combining archaeological findings and inputs from history, anthropology, paleontology, bio-psychology and even etymology, he traces the construction of human response to death that goes back hundreds of thousands of years. He enumerates multilateral debates in each chapter and gets the readers eager for more knowledge. And when, pitifully, the book ends, your mind has opened up a hundred and eighty degrees and your views on your own species will never be the same.

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Alessandra Vasyuta

Fantastic new argument on Human Sacrifice

December 27, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I first read this book years ago in college and loved it. I would say I read this book at least once a year. His theories regarding human sacrifice, scapegoating, and our evolving interpretation of death are incredibly interesting and have helped me narrow down the topic I intend to study for my anthropological post-graduate program. This is well-written, well-researched, and is an excellent introduction to the subject for the general reader. I highly recommend this book.

3 people found this helpful

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George Zucco III

Just bones

August 10, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is no radical departure, or anything new as the write-ups suggest, and it certainly doesn't live up to the title "How humans invented death." I was expecting a more intriguing take on the nature of cannibalism and its religious/philosophical metamorphosis to the present day. In fact it's all anthropology: old digs, ancient tribes, bone fragments, etc. So if that's your primary interest, by all means; otherwise, nothing new here.

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GalxxxyGrrl

Twilight Explained! Great Read!

April 3, 2009

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I got this item because I read Twilight and I wanted a scholar's take on vampirism and death ritual and afterlife - it is that and more! He does claim that humans were not cognizant of death before we acquired language/speech. I simply don't buy that and I think other animals may be aware of death and dying too - which is a big deal in our limited sicence right now! I have seen dogs, cows, cats, and birds, etc hover over a dying member waiting and watching and "knowing" that the outcome will be loss, you can tell by their anxious wimpers and cries...they know about death and are aware of it on some level just like we are, like all sentient beings are. Animals also exhibit the full range of emotions that Taylor mentions are so crucial to the experience of death that we also humans express. Its instinctual to know about mortality so I just think its bunk that our science has long used this "concept" to differentiate us from other animals. Bah! Animals dream and even have REM sleep too! Dreaming is the aspect of being that belies intent and awareness...

"Awareness" is not something we take into account well since Rationalism/and Cartesian Dualism of the 1800's took over. Its our blind side now, especially in science. See the Toltecs for more on awareness and the Serpent Rainbow of the Mayans, Aboriginals, etc, etc, etc...This is the real secret! Anyway, sorry for the tangent, this is a great read. But don't read it too late at night when you are all alone in the house!

"If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of ... And with all of that, who is there who believes in vampires?" - Rousseau

I suspect we have long limited our consciousness through rigmorale and denial of ourselves and our true nature and fear of feminine intuition, burned at the state. But its time to wake up. The polar ice can't take anymore of our ignorance and denail. See Nova's Extreme Ice, and Join the ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT!

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Newton Ooi

Insightful but slow reading

August 9, 2005

Format: Hardcover

This book deals with the concept of death in the human experience, specifically how the living think of death, try to control it, demystify it, and use it as a tool to control the behavior of individuals and societies. Medicine and the prevention of death is ignored; instead the book focuses on cultural and philosophical issues from prehistory days to modern times.

Topics covered in the book include cannibalism, burial practices, worshipping the dead, exorcism and getting rid of dead spirits, sacrificial killings, beliefs in the afterlife, and vampires. The author attempts to explore these topics for a variety of cultures and geographies, and does a good job of including examples from Islam, the West, Native Americans, Australian aborigines, and some other groups, but the book is in no way comprehensive. Several notable examples of man's obsession with death are excluded, such as Mexico's Day of the Dead, Halloween, and the raising of Lazarus by Jesus. Instead, the book tries to cover the topics we do not necessarily think about or are even aware of. These include the prevalence of ritualistic cannibalism throughout the world, the long history of sacrificial killings, and the one topic still alive today, the treatment of widows in certain non-Western cultures.

The book itself is written in first person. The author is a trained anthropologist working in this field. Each topic begins with his narration of a field dig; from there he goes on to give a lecture on what his finds tell us about culture and history; specifically death. For example, the chapter on cannibalism begins with his description of buried skeletons that show clear cut marks where stone tools were used to separate flesh from bone. This style of writing is engaging, though there were many times when too many words were spent relating the field dig, thereby distracting the reader.

Overall, an interesting book though the reading can be quite slow at times.

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