And the methodological path from the original 2008 claim to the more robust 2020 evidence base illustrates something important about how science actually works in practice.

The initial claim was not wrong — it pointed in the right direction, at evidence that was genuinely there.

But it was insufficiently supported to stand on its own against legitimate methodological challenges.

The work that followed — the additional excavation, the expanded dating program, the independent testing, the biomarker analysis — did not simply confirm what was already known.

It built a much more robust evidentiary case than existed before the challenges were raised.

The people of Paisley Caves, 14,200 years ago, left evidence of themselves in the most unintentional way imaginable.