Despite there being not a smidge of evidence for the existence of an immutable, eternal soul, its existence is a deeply held belief, likely echoing from the dawn of modern man, perhaps even a conviction of our Neanderthal ancestors. This assumes the Neanderthal propensity for ritual burial is evidence of their belief in some sort of afterlife. There is a hidden presupposition in this question, namely that a soul exists, which leads me to believe it was postulated by a theist or a deist. The question, then, is missing one of the potential answers, rendering it more a trap than a quest to uncover truth. Theist camps claim each of the three answers to be the truth, depending upon the religion followed.