Arlington Springs is one piece of a much larger puzzle, and its role is to contribute evidence about a specific place and time, not to settle all debates.

The debates, in fact, continue.

The timing of the initial peopling of the Americas, the number of separate migration waves, the routes taken, and the relationships between the earliest known skeletal remains and later populations are all subjects of active research and genuine scientific disagreement.

Ancient DNA science, which has transformed what is known about human population history elsewhere in the world, is producing new insights about the genetics of early Americans as more ancient individuals are analyzed.

The specific place of terminal Pleistocene California in the broader story of American origins is still being worked out.