"There has been a tendency among researchers working on this topic to discard all evidence coming from old excavations just because the excavations were done long ago," said Francesco d'Errico, an archeologist at the University of Bordeaux in France who was not involved in the study.

"This study demonstrates that the pioneers of the discipline often did, considering the means they had, a very good job."

Most anthropologists now agree, based on evidence uncovered at 20 or so grave sites throughout Western Europe, that our closest evolutionary relatives buried their dead at least some of the time.

The site at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France, however, has always been something of a question mark. In 1908, two brothers who were also archeologists uncovered the