Like the previous person stated: put down a marker! - I didn't figure that out at first, and just yesterday I discovered several tombstones that I had completely forgotten about from my first few days of playing. There's wasn't anything of value by this point, but it was fun to see what I was carrying and kind of a cool surprise.

My understanding is they will be there FOREVER, and will only disappear after you've removed all loot.

My experience has supported this. I once found a tombstone left by my nephew many many days after he stopped playing.

I've considered naming characters "iron" and having my nephew kill me and use the corpse marker as a cool glowing chest.

Originally posted by Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch:

I've considered naming characters "iron" and having my nephew kill me and use the corpse marker as a cool glowing chest.

People do this as tombstones have more storage space.

Tombstones remain until you fully loot them. The skull and crossbones remains wherever you died last.

If you died a second time before looting the first tombstone, the location indicator on your first tombstone disappears and shows the second one instead. However, the first tombstone is still there.

That why it's a good practice to get into to put your own marker where your tombstone is in case that happens you don't lose track of it. Hope this helps