to think if there was a dead body buried in the garden you would want to know about it?

[CarenzaLewis2]

I know I would.

And I have discovered there is one in my neighbour’s garden. Do I tell them?

Drone camera!!

It’s likely to be Roman

Can anyone explain why it would actually bother them? Our ancestors have walked this earth for tens of thousands of years, their remains are likely to have been strewn liberally around. People do tend to die!

If it is an undiscovered murder victim I can see why there's an issue. If it's someone who died in the last century where there might be living relatives who remember them I can see some sort of case (although those relatives would have abandoned the remains). If they died two millennia ago then grow up!

I would love a body under my patio.
My exh's to be precise.
I would party out there every night.....

I would LOVE it!
I think I would also be in the dig ‘n’ poke camp. But I wouldn’t really as he/she deserves to be left in situ after all these years.

This was definitely posted as that kind of scenario. Like next door had someone buried under their garden and didnt know, so would you tell them...hence the responses of well the police should be told, etc.

We know there are more dead bodies under us than the numbers walking over the top of them, so how can they fail to be literally littered everywhere.

This is what always makes me laugh about ghost stories. There literally can't be an empty space without a spirit occupying it with the numbers of souls that have passed over!

Whatcha gonna do OP?

I'd definitely want to know.

Could you maybe get them chatting and see if they're interested in history or archaeology? Maybe drop in that some of the houses nearby are close to burials then gauge their reactions?

Just out of interest - if one of your children died, would you be happy for someone to "dig him/her up and poke about a bit"?

Just out of interest - if one of your children died, would you be happy for someone to "dig him/her up and poke about a bit"?

I think you need to accept that over the course of two thousand years there is a good chance that that will happen

Valanice

Noones dc died?! If you buried your dc in the garden and then moved, or died yourselves 60,70 years later?

Wouldn't it be suspect?

House builders buying land with human remains on don't have any kind of duty to prevent people doing what they want with designing their gardens, or digging ponds, etc.

In 2000 years time Valanice, I would be very unlikely to be around to care...

@Valanice1989 it probably happens more than you think, in my grandparents (died 60s and 70s) cemetery in London they ran out of room, graves a hundred + years old were dug up and put together in the corner ridge to make more room.

And yes, like Fiddlesticks says, you surely must know that wherever you and your family end up buried is exceedingly unlikely to stay as sacrosanct ground for the next two millennia!

What Fiddlesticks said. People lived on this island for thousands of years before there were graveyards. I'd be more worried about a mine shaft under my house or a flood plain or potential bad neighbours (living).

Just out of interest - if one of your children died, would you be happy for someone to "dig him/her up and poke about a bit"?

I have a DC who died. After I die, too, and my h and a hundred years or so go by I'm not really going to care who digs it all up.

@CarenzaLewis2

If you've done a bit of archaeology, you should be aware that there are laws about digging up the dead.

I suggest that you contact your local council or coroners office, or even the people who wrote the archaeological report you refer to.

Please don't just dig it up.

1: you'll be breaking the law

2: you'll wreck the context and probably cause significant damage

Out of interest OP, how do you find out if there's a dead body buried in the garden? Is there a register? ?

If it's been there since Roman times without bothering anybody then leave it alone.

I do have happy memories of a Time Team where Tony Robinson discovered a nun's cemetery had been built all over by a terrace and knocked on doors saying can we dig up your garden. As I remember, the home owner's answer was oh go on then, but put her back where you found her.

not really sure about op and her dig claims, a roman burial would be called roman remains, not a body and depending on the soil type there might not be much of anything including bones.

I definitely wouldn't want to know. It would creep me out, so I'd rather not know.

Where I live, it would be more notable to find that there weren't any archaeological remains in your garden. But the poor thing needs to be left well alone! I don't have any superstition about death and souls or anything like that, but the body will have been given a proper burial at the time and unless anyone suspected that it was an important person and that there might be something to be learned from digging it up, then I think disturbing the bones out of curiosity is distasteful. If it was in my garden, I wouldn't be bothered by it but I wouldn't want to go messing about with it either.

Everything @theyvegotme said! If the skele was left in situ, please please consider there was probably a good reason for it! Lifting a whole skeleton from a burial site (we don't call them bodies btw) and correctly recording it isn't something I'd be comfortable doing without supervision and I've qualified/got postgrad/worked in commercial archaeology. Without the context and correct testing facilities, the whole exercise is pointless. And what are you going to do with it afterwards? Display it in your living room? Don't forget grave robbery is illegal and archaeologists can't just go at a site randomly.

Wait until your neighbors go on vacation and dig it up yourself.

Oh, I thought you meant modern. Ancient wouldn't bother me. I kind of assume there must be many such burials dotted around.

I watched a TV Program the other week about Peter Tobin and there was reasonably sound evidence of a property he lived in where there may be a body buried. It was council owned.
The show wanted to dig up the garden and the the tenants refused as did the local council. At the time I wondered how they could sit in their gardens in the summer not knowing if that poor missing girl was under their feet.

In those circumstances, I'd want to know.

Where I live, it would be more notable to find that there weren't any archaeological remains in your garden.

That's true of most places which are now cities, as they have been inhabited by humans for centuries usually due to their proximity to waterways. I mean, I had a mate who wanted to buy a place in the Old Town of Edinburgh but didn't want a place where someone had died or was on a place where someone had died. That's impossible in that area.

My house was built on an old WW2 hospitals apple Orchard! I'm sure there bodies possibly under my house / in the garden. I'm intrigued how you found out now as I want to do a bit of research!