Burial is a uniquely human behavior and can be observed in the Paleolithic archaeological record. This record allows the tracing of a worldwide evolutionary trajectory from simple caching to increasingly complex and elaborate practices. Ethnographic analogies as well as contextual and taphonomic analyses suggest that what motivated burial was first and foremost emotional and spiritual bonds between living and dead members of hunter-gatherers groups. Through time, with the change of human economic and social foundations, burials also attained significance as markers of land use and ownership and as expressions of ritual and group memory.