They were saying, in the material language of burial, that this infant mattered.

That her brief presence in their community had been real.

That her departure from it required acknowledgment.

Science has added a layer to that acknowledgment that spans eleven and a half millennia.

The acknowledgment of the people who buried her spans the same distance, in a different but equally real form.

Both forms of recognition — the scientific and the human — are valid.

Neither replaces the other.