Cinq-Mars had evidence — imperfect evidence, evidence that could not be fully validated by the methods of his time, but genuine evidence that pointed toward a real historical phenomenon.

The understanding of what that evidence meant, and its integration into the broader scientific picture of the peopling of the Americas, took decades longer than it should have.

The Bluefish Caves story is, among other things, a cautionary tale about the costs of paradigm conservatism in scientific communities.

Resolution: What Bluefish Caves Actually Proves

The caves in the northern Yukon that produced the cut-marked horse mandible and the other modified bones of the 2017 study are not particularly impressive as physical sites.

They are small limestone cavities in a ridge above a small river in one of the more remote parts of Canada.