If one pit chamber contained the bones of an early American, other chambers might contain other evidence — of different periods, different individuals, different aspects of the relationship between humans and the underground landscape.

The investigation of those other chambers has not proceeded as quickly as the Hoyo Negro findings might have suggested it would.

Underwater cave archaeology is slow, expensive, logistically demanding, and constrained by the limited number of researchers with both the necessary diving skills and the archaeological expertise to conduct meaningful work in this environment.

But the Hoyo Negro project demonstrated that such work was possible and scientifically valuable, and it established a template for how similar projects might be conducted in the future.

The Publication That Shocked The Field