This explanation is consistent with the burial evidence, and it is the explanation most commonly offered by archaeologists who have studied the site.

But it is worth acknowledging that other explanations exist.

Some researchers have suggested that elaborately buried children in the Paleolithic may have been recognized as having special spiritual or ritual status — perhaps they were seen as having died in a state of purity or transition, or as having a special relationship to supernatural forces that made their burial particularly important.

Other researchers have proposed that the elaborate burial of some children may reflect not hereditary social hierarchy but the specific emotional response of communities that had experienced a particularly significant loss.