The people who noticed the bones and reported them were doing what responsible members of communities near archaeological sites do.

The convergence of these contingent events brought the discovery into the world.

This contingency is a reminder that the archaeological record as a whole is shaped not only by what past people did and what survived, but by the specific processes of discovery that bring that survival to the attention of modern researchers.

The Loch Borralie cairn yielded its evidence because rabbits and observant locals and the environmental conditions of northwest Scotland all aligned.

Other cairns in other conditions with other histories may never yield theirs.