They covered him in red ochre.

They sealed the grave with a stone.

Then they left.

Or they stayed nearby, living on, doing the things that communities must do to survive: hunting, processing food, tending fires, maintaining the social bonds that held them together in a world that demanded collective effort.

The child stayed in the grave.

Twenty-four thousand years is a very long time.

During those years, the stone slab remained.

The ochre remained.