Stable isotope analysis, developed and refined over the latter half of the twentieth century, provided the dietary evidence.

Ancient DNA extraction and sequencing, developed in the 1980s and transformed by next-generation sequencing technology in the 2000s, provided the genomic evidence.

Each of these methods transformed what could be learned from the same physical material.

The bone and teeth that were present in the cave held specific information about radiocarbon age, about diet, and about genomic ancestry — information that was there all along but that could only be accessed once the specific methods for reading it had been developed.

The progressive application of new methods to the cave’s contents has been a multi-decade process of expanding what can be known from a specific set of physical remains.