They documented it as though it mattered.

It turned out to matter enormously.

Their documentation made it possible for later generations to understand why.

The Stone Tools And What They Tell Us

Among the materials found in and around the Spirit Cave burial were stone tools that placed the individual within a specific archaeological tradition and raised important questions about the relationship between the earliest Great Basin inhabitants and the broader patterns of American prehistory.

The tools associated with the Spirit Cave burial and the related site contexts in the Lahontan Basin area were characteristic of what archaeologists call the Western Stemmed Tradition — a stone tool technology defined by its characteristic projectile point style.