It carried the history of populations, the record of ancestral mixing, the specific genetic heritage of a people who left no other written record.

In that sense, the genome of MA-1 is the most complete message that the people of Mal’ta left behind.

Not the figurines — as beautiful and significant as they are.

Not the tools.

Not even the elaborate burial itself.

The genome.

The degraded, fragmented, 24,000-year-old molecular record of a child’s cells.

That record said: we were here.