If it was not conducted, it remains a potential avenue for future analysis that could provide additional information about the child’s dietary environment — subject, as always, to the constraint that each additional analysis requires physical sampling of a specimen that is finite and precious.

The geographic mobility of the individuals who produced the tooth can also be assessed, in principle, through strontium isotope analysis.

Strontium in tooth enamel reflects the strontium signature of the foods and water consumed during the period of tooth formation, which in turn reflects the geology of the geographic area where those foods were produced.

If the strontium signature of the Trail Creek tooth differs significantly from the baseline strontium signature of the Seward Peninsula, it might indicate that the child — or her mother, during pregnancy, since fetal tooth formation begins before birth — was located somewhere other than the immediate vicinity of the cave during the period of tooth formation.

These isotopic analyses, if not already conducted, represent potential future contributions to the Trail Creek evidence base that would add dietary and geographic dimensions to the picture currently established by the genetic, dating, and morphological analyses.