She died young, as many people did in the terminal Pleistocene, and she was buried with care by people who had specific ideas about what should accompany her.

Comparing Early Western Burials — What She Shares And What Sets Her Apart

The Buhl burial can be compared to a small number of other early western North American skeletal finds that are broadly contemporary or claimed to be so.

Spirit Cave in Nevada is among the most important comparisons.

The Spirit Cave Mummy — a naturally mummified individual found in a Nevada cave in 1940, whose remains sat in a Nevada state museum for decades before being studied and then repatriated — produced radiocarbon dates placing the individual in the early Holocene, roughly 10,600 to 9,400 calibrated years ago.

The Spirit Cave individual was associated with woven textile materials, including a mat and woven items of considerable sophistication.