I don't know if I know how to explain this, but I must try.

You are buying a game. The game is disguised as a particular sort of regionally produced archaeology journal which I used to see for sale in state parks when I was a youth.

In this solo game you are creating the results of an excavation of a cave mouth which has been a frequently used campsite for a thousand or more years. You do this backwards, building up history from the bedrock up.

You will roll a die and add dirt, building the cave floor upwards over time. At some points there will be archaeological finds 'uncovered'; you will operate a flowchart to learn about that find and how it came to be there. I am very proud of these flowcharts–some of them are, maybe, the best art I've ever made.

You operate the flowchart and then add things to your strata schematic. In this case you would draw in beads and follow the procedure for making a long-dead campfire.