He recognized the stratum they were in.

He knew what both facts meant, even though he could not yet prove it with the precision that later science would achieve.

He preserved the bones.

He published what he could.

He left the rest for the future.

The future arrived, in the form of John Johnson and Thomas Stafford and the AMS laboratory and the XAD purification method and the chronostratigraphic survey of Arlington Canyon.

The bones were dated.