This technological detail connects the genetic findings to the material culture of the ancient world in a way that the genome alone cannot.

The genome says: this person was here, and her lineage was ancient.

The tools say: this is what her people were doing.

The salmon bones say: this is what they were eating.

The hearth says: this is where they kept warm.

Together, they sketch the outlines of a life — and a community — that the science can describe only in the broadest terms but that was as fully human as any life that has been lived before or since.

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