In the years since the Mal’ta paper was published, it has been cited, discussed, summarized, and built upon in hundreds of subsequent scientific papers.

It has also been described in popular science journalism, in museum exhibits, and in various accounts of the peopling of the Americas.

In most of these accounts, the emphasis falls on the scientific finding — on the Ancient North Eurasian ancestry, on the genome, on the implications for understanding Native American origins.

What tends to get less attention is the burial itself — the physical reality of what was found in the ground near Lake Baikal, and what it means on its own terms, apart from any genomic significance.

A child was loved.