The person whose femora were found 37 feet below the modern surface was somewhere in this canyon when they died, or was washed into the depositional context by the stream after dying nearby.

The bones were incorporated into the accumulating alluvium, covered by subsequent deposition, buried deeper and deeper as millennia passed, until erosion in the modern canyon wall brought them to the surface where Phil Orr could see them.

From the canyon, if you climbed to the ridge above, you would look south and east and see water.

The Santa Barbara Channel — the crossing that was required to get to this island — would be visible on a clear day as a band of blue between the island’s cliffs and the California mainland.

The distance from here to there is navigable today by small boat in a few hours.