how many human remains are under our entire earth right now?

Question

also, will everything biodegrade, coffin and all? or are we adding to messing up the planet with this burial custom?

Answer 1

Given the fact that there have been some kind of intelligent human like life forms on this planet far longer ago than any of our scientists are aware, and that the evidence will be found sooner or later, I imagine that the number of buried bodies are astronomical. Whether they disintegrate or not, is hard for anyone to know at this time. But maybe one day, all that information will be available to us.

Answer 2

The answer to your question begins with knowing the total number of people who have ever been born, adjusted by some value for how many of those people you think got buried. The total number estimate will depend basically on two factors: (1) the length of time humans are thought to have been on Earth and (2) the average size of the human population at different periods.

Fixing a time when the human race actually came into existence is not a straightforward matter. According to the United Nations' Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends, modern Homo sapiens may have appeared about 50,000 B.C.

At the dawn of agriculture, about 8000 B.C., the population of the world was somewhere on the order of 5 million. The slow growth of population over the 8,000-year period, from an estimated 5 million to 300 million in 1 A.D., results in a very low growth rate — only 0.0512 percent per year.

Life expectancy at birth probably averaged only about 10 years for most of human history. Estimates of average life expectancy in Iron Age France have been put at only 10 or 12 years. Under these conditions, the birth rate would have to be about 80 per 1,000 people just for the species to survive. Today, a high birth rate would be about 45 to 50 per 1,000 population, observed in only a few countries of Africa and in several Middle Eastern states that have young populations. The birth rate assumption greatly affects the estimate of the number of people ever born.

By 1 A.D., the world may have held about 300 million people. However, other historians set the figure twice as high, suggesting how imprecise population estimates of early historical periods can be. By 1650, world population rose to about 500 million, not a large increase over the 1 A.D. estimate.
By 1800, world population had passed the 1 billion mark, and it has continued to grow since then to the current 6 billion.

The defendable estimate I found showed the number who have ever been born at 106 billion. Assuming that 50 percent of those people were buried upon death (a wild guess, to be honest), that gives us an estimate of about 53 billion bodies.

Re: biodegradation, everything biodegrades to some degree, although items made from natural substances (including animal tissue) degrade much more rapidly than man-made substances such as metal alloys and plastics. However, in the end, EVERYTHING biodegrades, albeit periods that may last thousands of years (depending upon the material and burial condition).

Re: "messing up the planet", an interesting environmental concern that has come to light is the Western world's custom of embalming bodies prior to burial. It is the accumulation of embalming chemicals (which often contain complex hydrocarbons and metals) that has begun to show significant negative effects in the local environment.

However, in the end, and on the grand cosmic scale of human impacts to our planet's environment, I'd have to say that damage from burying dead folks probably doesn't make the top 100 bad things that humans do to mess up the planet.

Answer 3

If we are led to beleive there are millions of bodies under the earth then we are mistaken because after so many years the body returns to dust/earth and is therfore reycyled naturally.
After 100 years or so a body that once was whole could be no longer there at all just dust and earth. Yes skeleton remains are found over thousands of years because of the environment the body was laid in. But normally you will not know if a body was there or not. Life is a mystery but death is even more of a mystery
Kind regards
Peter A

Answer 4

22

Answer 5

Everything made from natural elements is biodegradable. So not to worry. All flesh and blood converts to mud, and wood, clothes to other form.
There will be a threat if we start using synthetic or plastic coffins.

Answer 6

I think we are adding to the mess. Creamation is the solution. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I think we should return back to the earth as dust, and not wait to decompose. Many cementaries require a concrete vault to place the coffin in. These are not biodegradable.

Answer 7

From dust to dust, from the ground and back to the ground, our bodies are all made from the dirt, we are all just dirt reshaped into our bodily forms. If you move the air around, will you mess it up? I don't think so. Most people are messing up the planet, not with their burial customs, but with their living customs. Love Ya.

Answer 8

Everything degrades over time given long enough. You pose and interesting thought about the custom though. Given an old cemetary with remains from say the 1600's. Why not reuse the space? I'm mean it isn't like they get alot of visitors.

Answer 9

The total number of humans who ever lived is
above 2*10^10 (twenty billion) and below 2*10^11.

It matters what is the definition of a "human"...

Answer 10

I'm sure theres way too many bodies down there to predict an exact amount. As for the coffins, I think if you want the to eventually disappear, then your best bet would be good old wood. :)