They worked bone and ivory into objects that served both practical and symbolic purposes.

And they buried their dead with care.

The site at Mal’ta was first excavated in the 1920s by the Soviet archaeologist Mikhail Gerasimov, who was at the time barely in his twenties.

Gerasimov would go on to become one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished archaeologists, known particularly for his work in facial reconstruction from skulls — the technique of rebuilding a person’s appearance from their skeletal remains.

But in the late 1920s, he was a young researcher working a site near Lake Baikal that was already yielding remarkable finds.