The bones show no signs of trauma that would indicate a fatal fall, though the fragmentation and displacement caused by the flooding and the subsequent twelve thousand years on the cave floor might have obscured such evidence.

They also show no signs of pathology — no disease process, no nutritional deficiency severe enough to leave bone-level traces.

She was a healthy young woman who died in the dark at the bottom of a deep cave, and the cave kept her for twelve thousand years.

Why The Debate Continues

The 2014 Science paper, for all its significance, was not the final word.

Scientific understanding rarely proceeds in final words.