Third, taphonomy.

Human bone, like animal bone, is subject to the same processes of decay, weathering, and destruction that affect all organic remains.

In the acidic, variable conditions of cave sediments, even well-buried human remains may not survive in recognizable form over 24,000 years.

The combination of these factors means that the absence of human skeletal material from Bluefish Caves does not indicate the absence of human people.

It indicates that the specific circumstances that would have been necessary to preserve such material — deliberate burial in an appropriate sediment context, with conditions favorable for long-term preservation — did not occur, or have not yet been found, at this particular site.