There’s “no convincing scientific evidence” behind the extraordinary claims that the ancient human relative Homo naledi deliberately buried their dead and engraved rocks deep in a South African cave around 300,000 years ago, a group of archaeologists argues in a new commentary.

H. naledi became a lightning rod of controversy earlier this year after a team claimed the extinct hominin with an orange-size brain carried its dead into the Rising Star cave system, lit fires and engraved abstract patterns and shapes onto the walls — complex behaviors previously known only in larger-brained modern humans (Homo sapiens) and our close cousins.

The team courted backlash, in part, because they announced their controversial findings in a conference speech and three preprint studies that weren’t peer-reviewed, which frustrated some scientists, National Geographic reported at the time. The online journal eLife accepted the preprints, initially posted to bioRxiv in June, for a public peer-review assessment, which concluded that there was “incomplete” evidence behind the claims.