The waiting was not in vain.

The Weight of 24,000 Years

The number 24,000 years is abstract in the way that very large numbers are always abstract.

It exceeds the range of human intuition.

It is six times the entire span of recorded history.

It is 480 human lifetimes placed end to end.

It is far enough back that the coastlines of the world were different, the climate of the world was different, the ecosystems of every continent were different.

And yet it is not inconceivably long in terms of human evolutionary and cultural history.