They did not know that their teeth would survive.

They did not know that their genetic code would eventually be readable.

They were children, living their lives in one of the most demanding environments humans had ever chosen to inhabit, and they shed their baby teeth in the frozen ground.

Everything else that followed was science, operating across a gulf of time that is almost impossible to truly comprehend.

Why No Modern Group Directly Descends From Them — And What That Means