The tooth was recorded in the excavation notes and collected with other materials.

It was identified as a human deciduous tooth — a baby tooth — and its context within the cave was noted.

Then it was packaged with the other materials from the excavation and eventually made the journey back to Denmark, where it entered the collections of the relevant Danish institution.

There, for decades, it waited.

The institutional context for this long wait is important to understand, because it reflects something that is common in the history of archaeology — and that has become increasingly significant as new analytical methods have transformed what old collections can tell us.

Archaeological collections accumulated during the mid-twentieth century and earlier represent an enormous repository of potential scientific information.