That archive includes direct evidence of human presence — the coprolites, the artifacts, the organic materials — but it also includes environmental information: pollen from plants growing in and around the cave, the bones of animals that were killed or consumed nearby, and chemical records of changing conditions preserved in the sediment itself.

Reading this archive requires the full range of methodological tools available to modern archaeology and natural science — radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA analysis, fecal lipid biomarker chemistry, micromorphology, isotopic analysis, palynology, and archaeological artifact analysis.

No single method is sufficient.

The power of the Paisley evidence comes from the convergence of multiple independent methods, each with its own limitations and its own strengths, pointing to the same general conclusion through different routes.

The Scale of the Question the Caves Could Not Have Known They Were Answering