They were here.

They lived and died and were buried with care by people who loved them.

The limestone country of Texas kept them for eight thousand years, and then gave them up to a generation of scientists who learned what they could from the evidence.

And then — in the case of Buckeye Knoll — it received them back.

That is the complete arc of the story, as far as it can be told.

The rest is the silence of deep time, and the partial illumination that careful scholarship can bring to that silence.