Isotope data requires local reference values to be interpretable, and those values may not always be available for remote sites.

Radiocarbon dates have error ranges that expand at certain periods of the calibration curve.

Osteoarchaeological analysis requires experienced specialists and is subject to observer variation.

But when multiple independent methods point in the same direction, the convergence of evidence provides a degree of confidence that no single line of analysis could provide alone.

The evidence from Loch Borralie — the cut marks on the skull, the fracture pattern of the cranial base, the modification of the long bones, the careful anatomical repositioning of the modified bones, the DNA evidence of kinship and long-distance connection — forms a coherent picture in which the individual lines of evidence support and contextualize each other.

The COMMIOS project is generating a body of evidence about Iron Age Britain that is transforming the understanding of how people in this period lived, died, and were remembered.