The conclusion they reach — that this was likely a deliberate burial, placed in a location with prior significance, possibly accompanied by plant materials — is not a leap of imagination.

It is the result of systematic convergence of multiple independent observations.

What remains open is the interpretation of what that act of burial meant.

That is where the science reaches its limit and where the questions become, in a sense, philosophical.

She Belongs to Time

At some point, the analytical distance necessary for science gives way to something harder to name.

A woman died approximately 75,000 years ago.