Is not sacrificing people in funerary rites the sign of a high society?

E

exile

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To the best of my knowledge the Sumerians, Egyptians, Indians, and even the vikings, and Mayans sacrificed people as part of their funerary rites. The Zoroastrians didn't do this, nor is there any physical evidence that the Persians did although Herodotus claims a certain Persian Amestris did. Why did people perform these sacrifices? And is the implication of a society that did not perform these rites? What changed?
 
To answer my own question: human sacrifice developed among agricultural socieites out of totemism. The deity anthropomorphosized was sacrificed in order to renew fertility. By Egyptian times the reincarnation of this deity was substituted by the resurrection in the spiritual world. When the idea that the force responsible for our salvation was introduced as eternal there was no need for a scapegoat who by dying and being reborn ensure salvation anymore.
 
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