Burning your relatives.
If you want to dispose of a dead body, either human or animal, there are only a few ways you can do it, and they all have much the same effect. You can leave the body out in the open, so that other creatures of various kinds can eat most of it, metabolizing it into water and carbon dioxide. The bits that remain will be oxidized, essentially undergoing the same process but more slowly. An alternative option is to burn the body. This will also lead to the same results, but of course at a much faster rate. Or you can slow the process down by burying the body in the earth or at sea. In that case, consumption of the body by other creatures may still take place, but oxidization of the uneaten remains will not occur until the body is somehow exposed to the atmosphere once more.

In certain circumstances, geological change on top of a burial site will compress bodies and reposition them at increasing depths under the surface of the earth; in the case of some species—marine animals are a case in point—they may remain there for considerable periods of time, perhaps even millions of years. If you …