The bones were too important to risk on an inadequate test.

He preserved them for the future.

What Orr Published And What He Could Not Know

Orr published a brief account of the Arlington Springs find in the journal Science in 1962 — a paper that remains a foundational document in the archaeology of early California.

The paper was direct: bones of a man, found at a depth of 37 feet in water-laid sediments on Santa Rosa Island, California, dated by radiocarbon at 10,000 years before the present.

The dating at 10,000 years before present was based on associated charcoal from the same stratum — not directly on the bone itself, because the chemical preparation methods required for reliable radiocarbon dating of ancient bone protein were not yet available.