And the burial context itself — the care with which the dead were treated, the selection of objects to accompany them, the eyed needle as possible marker of identity or craft — is evidence of social complexity and symbolic behavior in the terminal Pleistocene that is not often visible in sites dominated by stone tools and animal bones.

What The Date Still Means — Even If It’s Wrong

Here is the most counterintuitive aspect of the Buhl case: the fact that the date may be inflated, and may therefore be wrong as a chronological anchor, does not reduce the burial’s importance.

In some ways, it makes the burial more interesting as a scientific case study.

A date that carries methodological concerns is not a failed date.

It is a date that tells us something about the limits of the method and about the specific conditions that can compromise radiocarbon dating of ancient human bone.