Short answers, pulled from the story.
Archaeologists discovered Neanderthal skeletons in Shanidar Cave, Iraq, and Pontnewydd Cave, Wales, dating back at least 300,000 years. These ancient remains are surrounded by layers of flower pollen that suggest deliberate burial practices.
The word funeral derives from the Latin funus, which carried meanings ranging from the corpse to the rites themselves. From the Cycladic civilization in 3000 BCE until the Hypo-Mycenaean era, interment was the primary method of disposal before cremation emerged around the 11th century BCE as an influence from Eastern cultures.
Bahá'í law forbids cremation and requires the body to be wrapped in silk or cotton shrouds within one hour's journey of death. Hinduism dictates that adult bodies are cremated within a day of death while children are typically buried, whereas Zoroastrianism prohibits both burial and cremation because they defile earth and fire.
Welsh peasants up until the 19th century carried a horse's skull in front of the coffin during funeral processions. Polish rural areas often hold wakes where the body lies in state for three days while family and neighbors pray day and night, and Spanish wakes are social events where people laugh and honor the dead before the funeral mass takes place at the church.
Embalming is common but not required in North America depending on religious practices or the time elapsed since death. Professional undertakers transport bodies in hearses equipped with light bars and flashers to identify them as part of a funeral cortège, and pacemakers must be removed prior to cremation because they could explode inside the furnace.
The first explicitly green burial cemetery in the United States opened in South Carolina during the 1990s. The Green Burial Council, established in 2005 and based in California, certifies burial practices to ensure appropriate materials are used such as natural bio-degradable shrouds placed into simple coffins made of cardboard.