The Great Basin still existed.

Native peoples still lived in the region.

The Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe could still point to Spirit Cave as part of an ancestral landscape.

The body had traveled farther culturally than geographically.

Removed from the cave, it entered a museum system, a legal system, and a scientific system that assigned new meanings to it.

Reburial reversed that movement.

The ancestor returned from collection to relationship.

That is why the final chapter cannot be measured simply by the scientific information gained.

The genome was important.

The 10,600-year date was important.