This explanation has broad support in comparative ethnography — the study of burial practices in documented societies — and it is generally considered the most parsimonious interpretation for elaborate prehistoric child burials.

The Sungir site in Russia, roughly contemporary with Mal’ta in broad terms and also from the Upper Paleolithic, produced the burials of two children covered in thousands of ivory beads, which are similarly interpreted as reflecting inherited high status.

But the inherited-status explanation is not the only one consistent with the evidence.

Some researchers have proposed that certain individuals — sometimes children — were recognized as having unusual spiritual or ritual significance in their communities, and that this recognition could motivate elaborate burial treatment independent of family status.

Others have argued that the emotional dimensions of child loss in small communities might specifically motivate the investment of elaborate grave goods, as an expression of grief rather than of social hierarchy.