Question: ancient burials.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Or just trip him.

[Anomalocaris]

Really depends on what you're looking for.  The earliest evidence of people throwing the dead into holes in the ground is alot older than the line archaeologists and anthropologists draw for burials.  

And "sky burials" probably are older still. Leave the body to make the scavengers happy and they'll leave you alone.

All predators are also scavengers.  So sky burial was probably a way to keep predators bent on scavenging away from inconvenient thoughts of easy opportunistic predation.

But it may require moving the corpse quite a distance, say half a mile or a mile, before it is so far away large predators coming to scavenge on it won’t also come to investigate the cave or camp site.  So initial burial might be a way to dispose of the corpse with less work than disposing Of it on the surface a proper distance away.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Some of the First Nations put their dead on elevated platforms, so only flying scavengers (and those good at climbing) could get at the body. Others left their elderly, men and women who couldn't keep up, under some bushes to wait for the inevitable.

[The Grand Nudger]

Just to draw the distinction again, that would be disposal, an archaeological question.  Burial, an anthropological question, as opposed to disposal, is typified by the amount of impractical labor involved.

Alot of animals engage in disposal, and disposal probably has alot to do with later burial, granted.
(and we probably aren't the only animals that engage in burial)

Burial as opposed to disposal can also indicate the perceived status of the person (and has been used as such in every society). You bury those valued, dispose of those detested. Even things like the above have elaborate underpinnings. It's better to be eaten by climbers and fliers than crawlers and diggers. The most deserving of us are afforded the most heroic ends. Think a flag and a gun salute. A ship on fire. Others are burned unceremoniously.

I, personally, want a baby to be conceived at my happy drunken wake, with bonfires and guns and the whole bit...bonus points for namesake, lol.

---

The purest form of the "not fast, just faster than the other guy" theory of predator evasion. 

The purest form would be to make the other guy’s velocity negative by pushing him towards the lion.

The key to winning every footrace is to kick the other fucker in the knee at the outset. 

[Anomalocaris]

Some of the First Nations put their dead on elevated platforms, so only flying scavengers (and those good at climbing) could get at the body. Others left their elderly, men and women who couldn't keep up, under some bushes to wait for the inevitable.

if scavengers can’t get at it, its smell would still attract them.  So if the goal is to keep the band safe from powerful scavengers who are not averse to live meal that happen to be near by, then, it would be necessary to take the corpse some distance away. 

So it seems to me the practice of First Nation is a highly evolved ritual of a societies that has long possessed the ability to easily fend off large predators, so the ritual is no longer closely shaped by the original considerations behind its initial practice.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Sky funerals were ornate, definitely a ritual event.

[madog]

Personally I am not against burying ancients, though think its good manners to wait until they are dead 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Personally I am not against burying ancients, though think its good manners to wait until they are dead 

Thank 'ee.

[Succubus]

Gone are the days when bodies were thrown down your enemies water well.
People have no sense of tradition.

[Anomalocaris]

Gone are the days when bodies were thrown down your enemies water well.
People have no sense of tradition.

Yeah, and what about catapulting them over the enemy’s walls?