Most of the bones from the upper skeleton survived.

The lower skeleton was less complete, and some elements had been compromised by the quarry operation before the discovery was made.

But what was there was enough: enough bone for physical analysis, enough for isotopic analysis, enough for the radiocarbon dating that would eventually define how this burial is understood.

She was buried in windblown and colluvial sediments — material deposited by wind and by downslope movement across the landscape — that overlay the Bonneville flood gravels directly beneath.

The stratigraphic position mattered: geomorphologists who studied the site after the initial excavation concluded that the original radiocarbon date was likely a minimum age for the burial, meaning the actual time of burial could not be younger than the date returned, and might be older.