If the claims are true, the behavior by Homo naledi—a baffling, small-brained member of the human family tree—would pre-date the earliest known burials by at least 100,000 years. An extinct human species that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago may have deliberately buried its dead and carved meaningful symbols deep in a South African cave—advanced behaviors generally deemed unique to Neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens. If confirmed, the burials would be the earliest yet known by at least 100,000 years. The claims, made today in two research papers uploaded to the preprint server bioRxiv, were also announced by paleoanthropologist...