Path: ...!2.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!feeds.news.ox.ac.uk!news.ox.ac.uk!nntp-feed.chiark.greenend.org.uk!ewrotcd!news.xcski.com!news.eyrie.org!beagle.ediacara.org!.POSTED.beagle.ediacara.org!not-for-mail From: Martin Harran Newsgroups: talk.origins Subject: Re: elephant burials Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:52:25 +0000 Organization: Newshosting.com - Highest quality at a great price! www.newshosting.com Lines: 41 Sender: to%beagle.ediacara.org Approved: moderator@beagle.ediacara.org Message-ID: References: <9152c6397cf0b5ef182970955272e5b2@www.novabbs.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: beagle.ediacara.org; posting-host="beagle.ediacara.org:3.132.105.89"; logging-data="26295"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@beagle.ediacara.org" User-Agent: ForteAgent/8.00.32.1272 To: talk-origins@moderators.isc.org Return-Path: X-Original-To: talk-origins@ediacara.org Delivered-To: talk-origins@ediacara.org id 6610B22976C; Fri, 22 Mar 2024 09:48:58 -0400 (EDT) by beagle.ediacara.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 38D04229758 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2024 09:48:56 -0400 (EDT) by moderators.individual.net (Exim 4.97) for talk-origins@moderators.isc.org with esmtps (TLS1.3) tls TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (envelope-from ) id 1rnfK0-000000039uj-24kz; Fri, 22 Mar 2024 14:52:36 +0100 by nntpmail01.iad.omicronmedia.com (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B2F68E050B for ; Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:52:26 +0000 (UTC) id 8A5262E201F5; Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:52:26 +0000 (UTC) X-Path: fx11.iad.POSTED!not-for-mail X-Original-Complaints-To: abuse(at)newshosting.com X-NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:52:25 UTC Bytes: 3998 On Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:09:45 +0000, b.schafer@ed.ac.uk (Burkhard) wrote: >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 I was reacting to the summary in your first link where they say "If this conclusion is accurate, these observations could indicate an understanding of *death and grief* potentially unlike anything else we've seen in the animal kingdom, revealing yet another way in which humans are not as unique as previously thought." (My emphasis added.) I haven't read the full paper but a quick search for grief/grieving doesn't turn up anything in it so I assume the authors didn't make this association, it was the person who wrote the article for The Conversation who claim to exercise "academic rigour, journalistic flair."