Each of these closures is permanent.

The Buhl Woman’s contribution to the scientific understanding of early Americans is, in terms of physical evidence, complete.

Future research will build on the published record.

It will not expand beyond it.

Why Uncertainty Is Not Failure

There is a tendency in popular accounts of archaeological discoveries to treat scientific uncertainty as a failure of science — as though if only the scientists had done their jobs better, the answers would be clear.

The Buhl case does not fit this pattern, and it is worth explaining why.