Denny was the encounter itself, preserved in bone.

The Age Of The Child

The radiocarbon dating and other age estimation methods applied to Denny’s remains placed her death approximately 90,000 years ago.

Let that number sit for a moment.

90,000 years ago, modern humans — anatomically modern Homo sapiens — existed, but they had not yet expanded out of Africa.

The major dispersal of modern humans across Asia and into Europe is generally dated to somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago.

90,000 years ago, the ancestors of all non-African modern humans were still in Africa, or perhaps in the Middle East at the very farthest extent of their earliest tentative expansions.