The only thing needed was for someone to recognize the tooth’s potential and initiate the work to unlock it.

What the Collections Said and What They Couldn’t

To appreciate what Rasic found when he went through the collections, and why the tooth’s rediscovery was significant, it helps to understand what the archaeological record of the Arctic human past actually looked like in the early twenty-first century — and specifically how sparse that record was in terms of actual human physical remains.

The Arctic is one of the most challenging environments on earth for the preservation of human skeletal material.