On the substantive side, the identification of bone modifications as human-made was contested.

Could the marks on the bones have been produced by carnivore teeth, by trampling, by root etching, or by other natural processes?

In the absence of definitive methods for distinguishing these different causes of bone modification, the attribution of specific marks to human activity required judgment calls that different researchers made differently.

Cinq-Mars spent years arguing for his interpretation of the Bluefish Caves evidence.

He was not without supporters, but the broader archaeological community remained unconvinced, and the site entered a kind of limbo — not definitively proved, not definitively disproved, sitting uneasily at the margins of the debate about the peopling of the Americas.