The available record reflects the survival of exceptional cases — sites that happen to be preserved in contexts above modern sea level, such as the inland depositional context at Arlington Canyon, or the elevated terrace sites on the Channel Islands that stood above the maximum late Pleistocene sea level.

The Arlington Springs individual survived the post-glacial sea-level rise because they died inland, in a canyon where stream sediments buried their remains well above the water level at any subsequent period.

Had they died closer to the shore — had their remains been deposited in a coastal camp or midden — nothing would remain.

The sediment that covered them would now be at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

This taphonomic fact — the systematic destruction by sea-level rise of all evidence from the most probable locations of early coastal occupation — is why even a fragmentary inland find like Arlington Springs is of disproportionate scientific value.