He published analyses of the Manis assemblage.

He maintained the specimen.

He worked within a professional context that was skeptical of his core claim, knowing that the evidence he had found was real, knowing that the rib was significant, but unable to fully demonstrate the significance with the tools available to him.

This is the experience of many researchers who work ahead of the methodological curve — who find evidence that is genuinely important but that cannot be fully demonstrated with the technologies of their time.

The history of science is full of these cases: observations that were correct but could not be confirmed until better tools were developed, claims that were dismissed but later vindicated by methods that the original observer could not have used.