Sediment ancient DNA is another potentially powerful tool.

Environmental DNA — DNA shed by organisms into the surrounding environment, preserved in sediment — has become an increasingly important tool for reconstructing past ecosystems and, in some cases, detecting the presence of species including humans.

Systematic sampling of the Bluefish Caves sediment for environmental DNA could potentially detect human presence even in levels that have not produced datable bone specimens with modification marks, extending the temporal and spatial resolution of the evidence for human activity at the site.

Micro-CT scanning — the use of computed tomography at microscopic resolution — could provide three-dimensional characterization of the modification marks on the Bluefish Caves specimens that would be more detailed and more definitive than the optical and scanning electron microscopy approaches used in the 2017 study.