These absences are not failures of the science.

They are honest descriptions of the limits of what can be known from the available evidence.

Science is a process of asking specific questions that specific evidence can answer, and acknowledging that not all questions can be answered by the evidence at hand.

The Trail Creek tooth answered the questions it could answer: age, sex, ancestry, and date.

It cannot answer the questions that require evidence that was not preserved or has not yet been found.

The restraint required to present these limits honestly — without filling them with invented narrative — is one of the most important disciplines of science communication.