The paper that introduced these bones to the scientific world was titled “Arlington Springs Man.” The size of the femora, as measured by Orr, was consistent with a male individual.

When John Johnson and his colleague Don Morris re-examined the remains in 1989, they reassessed the sex determination and concluded that the bones were more likely those of a woman.

At approximately the same time that the radiocarbon revision was being developed, the name “Arlington Springs Woman” was adopted and used for the individual in several publications and presentations.

The 1999 presentations at the Fifth California Islands Symposium used the “Woman” designation.

The basis for this reassessment was a technical comparison: Johnson and Morris compared certain measurements of the Arlington Springs femora to a reference population of known sex from another Channel Islands site.