The chemistry of his bones, the material of the weapon in his body, the isotopic signature of his diet — all of it pointed toward a life of movement across large distances.

In a world before roads, before horses in North America, before the mechanical transportation that we now take for granted, moving a hundred miles was an undertaking.

Moving several hundred miles to the coast and back — as his diet seemed to suggest — was extraordinary.

Who was this man?

What was he doing?

Was he a trader?

A traveler?

Part of a mobile society that ranged across the Pacific coast and inland plateau?

Did he have a home base somewhere, or was he one of those individuals who belongs to no single place, who moves through the world as a connector between communities that might otherwise never meet?

The bones couldn’t answer these questions directly.