[1776]

Originally Posted by SusanMarie ↗

That's true about bodies moving though, underneath the headstones. I'm not sure how long it said it takes to happen now, but I did read that.

I don't buy it, whatever underground shifting is going on it's not going to show up in the first few feet of soil and there have been plenty of exhumations even entire cemeteries dug up and moved to demonstrate people stay pretty much exactly where they are planted.

Maybe it has happened with a sink hole, underground river or something of that nature but 99.9999% of the time people stay put.

[Susan]

This particular piece was on a research study on finding the bodies of cold cases.

This kind of research has also improved our understanding of how well different survey methods work in different environments. For example, electrical resistivity surveys tend to work best in clay-rich soils whereas radar is best in sandy soils. We’ve also learned that gravestones are often not exactly in the correct position, and that graves containing many bodies are often not vertically aligned. This may occur due to coffins subsiding in soft ground, or in more extreme examples, due to “coffin slip”, where in inclined ground, burials move down the slope over time.

But I have read more than that about graves moving in cemeteries. I just can't remember where.

[William May]

My cousins found a "Red Ochre" prehistoric burial site with the bodies of 2 teenage boys and 1 teenage girl, who were buried about 2500 years ago. This was in Wisconsin. They dug them up right off their back patio at their house. Our own home property adjoined theirs (It was from the same property claim, I have the abstracts dating to 1843, when it was first surveyed by the U.S. government before Wisconsin was opened for land sales.)
This was in the 1950's. In the 1990's my mom decided to sell the family property in Wisconsin, and move to be closer to me in Tucson, where I could take care of her.
Amoungst the other maneuvers of the land buyers was them wanting her to do an "Archeological Study" of the property before the sale. (Of course, she would be paying for that.) She told them they could do whatever they wanted, but they would be paying for everything, and it would be added to the sales price. That was the last she heard about any of that.
There have been 60 BILLION people alive on the planet at one time or another. EVERYWHERE you walk, you are walking on someone's grave.

[Overlord86]

Originally Posted by HouseAtreides ↗

I love metal-detecting my backyard and have found lots of cool stuff, including animal bones. My dream is to find human remains, preferably several hundred years old at least. Is that weird?

Go try metal detecting in a cemetary.

[SCARLETXXXTREME]

Originally Posted by HouseAtreides ↗

I love metal-detecting my backyard and have found lots of cool stuff, including animal bones. My dream is to find human remains, preferably several hundred years old at least. Is that weird?

Yes.

[William May]

Originally Posted by Overlord86 ↗

Go try metal detecting in a cemetary.

I've often thought that running a gold recovery operation in a cemetery would be very profitable. Fixed depth, so you don't have to go too deep, and lots of gold teeth and wedding rings. Maybe even an occasional Rolex.
Of course, coming across someone who was buried with all their money would be great.
That is, if some weasely relative hadn't taken the money out, and put a check in it's place.

Screw all those numbskulls in Alaska, panning for gold!
Wonder if they'd do a TV series about me?

[1776]

Nobody buries rolexes or jewelry of any value maybe every 20 yards of earth moved you would find a $40 gold capped tooth so you would officially be the lowest paid digger in North America.

Only thing of any value in a burial is the bones (about $2,500 fully prepared and bleached for medical display) but they quickly get stained and worthless in a normal burial and I suspect the cleaning and bleaching is 80% of the price not so much the donated cadaver.

If you want to make money in a cemetery buy a lawn mower or backhoe.

[RogerSmithLikesDrugs]

The wierd part would be if you have a boner.

Originally Posted by HouseAtreides ↗

I love metal-detecting my backyard and have found lots of cool stuff, including animal bones. My dream is to find human remains, preferably several hundred years old at least. Is that weird?

[nerd]

I'm not sure why people are so surprised at this. Consider how long the earth has been here and how many millions of years life as existed in different periods. Then add on top of that human life, all its shit and garbage - we are all just standing on top of bodies and waste.