The specific cultural forms of that ancient community are not recoverable.

The specific language they spoke, the specific ceremonies they conducted, the specific social organization that structured their lives — all of this is gone.

But the landscape itself persists.

The salmon still run.

The spruce still grow.

The mountains are still visible on clear days.

And in the ground — eleven and a half feet down, or wherever the specific stratigraphy placed her — the bones of a six-week-old infant were preserved long enough to tell a story about the founding of the human population of two continents.

The landscape holds more than the bones.