The glacier that preserved Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi sits in exactly the kind of terrain that the cross-mountain trade routes traversed.

The possibility that he was crossing the mountains as part of this trade and travel system — or that he was familiar with such crossings — is one of the most compelling frameworks for understanding what he was doing in the alpine terrain where he died.

What He Ate And Where He Had Been

The isotopic analysis of Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi’s tissues is one of the most specific and most informative contributions that modern scientific methods made to understanding his life.

Isotope analysis works by measuring the ratio of different forms (isotopes) of specific elements — particularly carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and strontium — in biological tissues that preserve these chemical signatures after death.