[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

>"The child was buried in a residential site, close to where this community lived, evincing how intimately life and death are related. Only humans treat the dead with the same respect, consideration and even tenderness they treat the living. Even when we die, we continue to be someone for our group," Martinón-Torres added.

> "This would likely have been a group act, perhaps by members of the child's family. All of these behaviors are, of course, very similar to those observed in our own species today, so we can relate to this act even though the burial dates to 78,000 years ago," said study co-author Nicole Boivin, an archaeologist and director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany.

You have to be careful drawing inferences. Human sacrifice victims were also many times buried with great care.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Llullaillaco

Given the prevalence of childhood mortality in ancient and pre-historic times, an elaborate burial of a child has a pretty good chance of being part of some ritual sacrifice.