Whatever the specific belief, whatever the specific cosmological framework, the people of Mal’ta believed something.

They believed it strongly enough to act on it in concrete, labor-intensive ways.

They believed it strongly enough that it shaped the last things they did for a child they loved.

In the absence of the specific content of their belief, the fact of its existence is itself significant.

It says: these were people for whom the world had meaning.

For whom death was not simply cessation.