The necklaces of fish vertebrae and palm seeds and shells placed on a two-year-old were not generic — they were specific to that child, made for that child, placed with that child in death.

Disabled and dependent individuals were supported.

The spina bifida adolescent did not survive to fifteen through accident.

He survived because his community chose to keep him alive.

The investment required to carry and feed a paralyzed individual through a mobile hunter-gatherer existence — through the seasonal movements that a subsistence life required — was substantial.

The community made that investment.

The old were honored.

Individuals who had lived long enough to show the skeletal markers of advanced age were buried in the same pond as everyone else.