Death rituals in the elephant family are eerily reminiscent of our own rites. It's ironic that anthropologists have long maintained that the first sign of our species' humanness was Neanderthal man's burial of the dead. What does this mean when we now discover elephants burying their fallen companions? These massive creatures show deep grief over a fallen family member. They recognize bones of their own kind, often staying by their dead for days, performing a haunting dance with their feet, flinging dirt over the carcass, and placing palm fronds over it as if in burial.
— Brenda Peterson, Sister Stories