Re: elephant burials

Martin Harran wrote:

On Mon, 18 Mar 2024 09:47:06 +0000, b.schafer@ed.ac.uk (Burkhard)
wrote:

some time ago, Martin, I and a few others discussed burials,
and the way humans think about and relate to dead ancestors.
>
One question in this context was if similar behaviour can
be found in other animals. Here's a short paper on a recently discovered "elephant graveyard" - carefully argued
I'd say, without overegging the evidence
https://theconversation.com/elephant-calves-have-been-found-buried-what-does-that-mean-225409?
>
and here the academic paper it's based on
https://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/article/view/8826

They have not overegged it in regard to the findings suggesting
*burial* but I see nothing to support a jump from that to *grieving*.

That's because that was not the subject of that study, for this
you'd need to follow the links that they provide, which gets you inter alia to Anderson JR. 2016 Comparative thanatology. Curr. Biol. 26, R543–R556. who discusses
the emotional underpinnings of these activities. The findings
about burials support the analysis in studies like Anderson's