The location of the burial is known today as Mal’ta, an archaeological site in the Ust-Orda Buryat region of Russia, situated a few dozen kilometers northwest of the city of Irkutsk, not far from the great cold arc of Lake Baikal.

Lake Baikal is one of the defining features of the Siberian landscape — the world’s deepest lake, holding roughly twenty percent of all the liquid fresh water on the planet’s surface, a body of water so large and so cold that it moderates the climate of the surrounding region in measurable ways.

The lake has existed in roughly its current form for twenty to twenty-five million years, making it one of the oldest lakes on earth.

Its waters are extraordinarily clear.