The canyon wall still stands.

The spring still flows.

The channel is still there, still blue, still separating the island from the mainland.

And somewhere in that long geological record, between 11 meters of accumulated sediment and the present surface, is the stratum where two femoral bones were deposited 13,000 years ago — before the world we inhabit existed, before the sea rose to its present level, before the four modern Channel Islands separated from the single landmass of Santarosae, before any written record existed anywhere on Earth.

Someone was there.