The contexts that might have provided alternative dating materials were not documented in ways that would allow confident association with the burial.

What remains is a date that is accurate in the sense of measuring what was actually in the collagen — and potentially inaccurate in the more important sense of measuring when the individual actually died.

The Western Stemmed Tradition — Its Technology And Its People

The stone tool tradition represented by the obsidian point in the Buhl burial deserves more detailed treatment than it often receives in popular accounts of the burial, because the technology itself encodes information about the people who made and used it.

The Western Stemmed Tradition encompasses a range of projectile point types that share the basic characteristic of having a narrowed stem at the base — a feature that allows the point to be set into a split shaft or handle and secured with lashing and adhesive.