What the rabbits revealed was the bones — the specific human remains that had been protected beneath the cairn but that the burrowing disrupted enough to bring to the surface.

It was the appearance of human bones at the surface, rather than the presence of the cairn itself, that prompted the archaeological investigation.

The specific circumstances of discovery — the remote location, the animal disturbance, the bones appearing at the surface — add a note of contingency to the story.

The Loch Borralie discovery could easily not have happened.

The remains could have continued to rest undisturbed beneath the cairn, degrading slowly as the centuries accumulated.

The rabbits that disturbed them were doing what rabbits do, with no particular intention toward archaeology.