Each new site, each new date, each new assemblage of tools and food remains and environmental indicators adds a pixel to the mosaic of what human life on Santarosae and its successor islands looked like across the 13,000 years of documented occupation.

The Arlington Springs individual represents the edge of that mosaic — the earliest pixel in the picture.

Everything that followed, for thirteen millennia, was built on the fact that someone was already there.

The Science That Made It All Possible — AMS In Context

The accelerator mass spectrometry revolution that enabled the Arlington Springs revision deserves a broader contextual note, because it represents one of the most significant methodological advances in the history of archaeology and represents a model for how physical science can transform humanistic and historical disciplines.

AMS dating was not developed specifically for archaeology.