This is the fundamental limit of any scientific investigation of an ancient individual, and it is worth stating clearly and keeping in view as the scientific findings accumulate.

Science can tell us what he ate, roughly when he lived, approximately where he had been, and who among the living shares his maternal lineage.

It cannot tell us what he knew, what he cared about, who he loved, or what he was thinking when the mountains closed around him for the last time.

The Seventeen Living Connections

The seventeen people who were identified in the community DNA study as sharing closely matching maternal-line sequences with Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi have described the experience of learning this in various ways, in contexts where their responses have been shared publicly.

For some, the finding was primarily emotional — a confirmation of a connection that their cultural framework had always provided a language for, now expressed in the vocabulary of molecular biology.