# I've always wondered how long does it take for a dead person to just be bones?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-always-wondered-how-long-does-it-take-for-a-dead-person-to-just-be-bones/985658
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 17, 2023, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-always-wondered-how-long-does-it-take-for-a-dead-person-to-just-be-bones/985658 "2023-06-17T04:42:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ranch\_Dip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranch_Dip)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2023, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-always-wondered-how-long-does-it-take-for-a-dead-person-to-just-be-bones/985658/1 "2023-06-17T04:42:03Z")
Mods, please move if this is the wrong topic.
I 've always wondered how long does it take for a dead person to just be bones? I realize the correct answer is: it depends.
Anyone have any weird questions they have always wondered about? Share yours.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2023, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-always-wondered-how-long-does-it-take-for-a-dead-person-to-just-be-bones/985658/2 "2023-06-17T10:50:56Z")
Answer is, it depends. Are we talking about someone who has been embalmed, placed in a coffin and buried, someone who died in the woods, someone who died crossing the desert, or what?
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2023, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-always-wondered-how-long-does-it-take-for-a-dead-person-to-just-be-bones/985658/3 "2023-06-17T11:06:34Z")
Days, weeks, months, years, centuries… like you said, it depends. Otzi the Iceman is about 5,000-ish years old and he’s not down to bones yet.
Certain types of critters (dermestid beetles, for example) can clean the body down to bones in a matter of days. In more typical conditions, a body left to nature will decompose to bones in a matter of weeks.
A typical corpse placed in a coffin will take a decade or two, maybe longer, depending on the embalming process used and the local conditions. Bodies buried in places like the Alaskan Tundra will last significantly longer due to the cold conditions slowing decomposition.
If someone dies in a peat bog or in a really dry desert, sometimes the body can be naturally mummified, and they’ll basically never get down to just bones, at least not for thousands and thousands of years.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2023, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-always-wondered-how-long-does-it-take-for-a-dead-person-to-just-be-bones/985658/4 "2023-06-17T13:13:26Z")
Need answer fast?
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2023, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-always-wondered-how-long-does-it-take-for-a-dead-person-to-just-be-bones/985658/5 "2023-06-17T15:26:10Z")
Happy reading…
> **[Body farm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm?wprov=sfti1)**
>
> A body farm is a research facility where decomposition of humans and other animals can be studied in a variety of settings. The initial facility was conceived by anthropologist William M. Bass in 1981 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee, where Bass was interested in studying the decomposition of a human corpse from the time of death to the time of decay. The aim was to gain a better understanding of the decomposition process, permitting the development of techniques for e Seven...
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### Author:  [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2023, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-always-wondered-how-long-does-it-take-for-a-dead-person-to-just-be-bones/985658/6 "2023-06-17T15:31:17Z")
[What Happens To Your Body After 50 Years In A Coffin - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFnm4656ed4&ab_channel=Grunge)
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### Author:  [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2023, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-always-wondered-how-long-does-it-take-for-a-dead-person-to-just-be-bones/985658/7 "2023-06-17T22:49:01Z")
I’ faith, if he be not rotten before he die–as we
have many pocky corpses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in–he will last you some eight year or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2023, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-always-wondered-how-long-does-it-take-for-a-dead-person-to-just-be-bones/985658/8 "2023-06-17T23:18:45Z")
With the peat-bog mummies, the acid of the bog leaches away the bones fairly quickly, but it preserves the soft tissues for many centuries.