All of that is gone.

Not preserved in any archaeological context, not recoverable by any method that science currently possesses or is likely to develop.

Language leaves no physical trace in most archaeological contexts.

The mental life of ancient peoples — their beliefs, their emotions, their specific understandings of the world — is accessible only through the most indirect and partial evidence: the objects they made, the places they chose, the practices they maintained.

This is why the archaeological record, for all its power, remains fundamentally incomplete.