A New Way To Tell Ancient Native History

The Spirit Cave case also offers a model for how popular history can improve.

Older storytelling often begins with the archaeologist: “In 1940, scientists discovered…” The ancient person enters the narrative only when modern researchers find him.

A better story begins earlier.

The individual lived in a functioning human world more than ten thousand years ago.

He belonged to a community.

He died.

People buried him.

The cave protected that burial for millennia.

Only then did modern archaeologists enter the story.