<< If the Neanderthal burials do not mean that they are
fully human, then what does this say about the Eskimos who appear to have the
same practice as a caribou? Surely the Neanderthal burials were more
significant than what the Eskimos did!>>
This can be cleared up by simple logic. Under this reasoning, Neanderthals are
more human than Eskimos. I don't think so. It may just be that "evidence" of
burials is not the indicator we would like it to be.
<<Under the standard that you seem to be proposing, I am not sure that
anything would qualify as human activity.>>
The standard is simple. Look at Cro-Magnon man. That is human activity.
Compare that to what came before. A tremendous gap, a quantum leap divides
them.
Your view is that these activities were human, evolving into the modern. But
listen to Tattersall:
"Homo sapiens is emphatically NOT an organism that does what its prececessors
did, only a little better. It is something very...different." ["The Fossil
Trail" pg. 246, emphasis added]
So, no, under the standard of modern man's activity, what you've cited is not
hard evidence, in my opinion.
Jim