Multiple people, at multiple times, might have entered Hourglass Cave in the prehistoric period and left marks on its walls.

The specific connection between the torch evidence and the individual in the deep section requires careful inference.

But the pattern — marks on walls in the passages leading toward an isolated location where the bones of a single ancient individual were found — is consistent with the simplest interpretation: one person, carrying fire, penetrating the cave’s dark zone on a journey that reached the location where his remains were eventually discovered.

The Bones And What They Said