The Absence That Defines The Case

The most fundamental fact about the Buhl burial, as a scientific case, is an absence: the bones are gone.

Everything else — the published data, the ongoing debates, the calibrated awareness of the freshwater reservoir problem, the contribution to the Western Stemmed Tradition chronology literature — flows from a physical event that was irreversible from the moment it was completed.

In December 1991, the Buhl Woman’s remains were placed in the ground on the Fort Hall Reservation, and the scientific window closed permanently.

This absence is experienced differently by different parties to the Buhl case.