The raptors are up early, working the thermals that develop along the foothills.

Twelve thousand years ago, the hillside where the Anzick child was buried would have looked different in its specific ecology — different grasses, a different mix of shrubs and trees in the draws, the traces of late Pleistocene megafauna in the muddy margins of the streams.

But the mountains would have been there.

The morning light would have come in from the same direction.

The cold of the high-altitude spring morning would have been recognizable.