He was right.

He preserved it for science that did not yet exist.

That science eventually told the story that the bones contained: that human beings were already on this island, already crossing this water, already part of the Pacific coast’s long human history, thousands of years before the old models said they should have been.

The two femoral fragments — now repatriated, now returned to the island landscape — completed their scientific journey.

They went from canyon wall to museum drawer to dating laboratory to published literature, contributing one of the most important single data points in the story of how the Americas were first inhabited.