He was a person before he was a scientific subject.

He had a life before his bones became evidence.

And when the people who buried him made the decision to accompany him with their finest tools, covered in red ochre, they were making a statement about his value and his belonging that had nothing to do with what twenty-first-century scientists would eventually find in his DNA.

The genome told us something profound and important.

But it did not tell us the most important thing about the child.