Not a dominant part, not a simple part, but a real part — a piece of the complex ancestral tapestry that makes contemporary Native American genetic diversity what it is.

And it runs back, through many generations and many intermediate populations, to the place where a flat stone was placed over a small body in the Siberian cold.

To the beads that someone spent hours making and sewing.

To the diadem placed on a child’s head as a final act of care.

To the carved birds that were tucked alongside a three-year-old who would never be a hunter, never be a maker of figurines, never grow old enough to know what his community believed about the world.

To the stone that covered everything.