The polymerase chain reaction was being developed at exactly the same moment.

Radiocarbon dating had been refined but the calibration curves that allow precise conversion of radiocarbon dates to calendar years were less complete.

Wet-site archaeology in North America had been practiced primarily in the cooler, waterlogged environments of the Pacific Northwest and had only begun to be applied systematically to the warm-water sites of the South.

The combination of a developer willing to halt construction, an archaeologist quick enough to recognize the site’s potential, an institutional support system at Florida State University capable of mounting a major multidisciplinary field project, and a scientific community at exactly the moment when the tools needed to make the most of the opportunity were becoming available — this combination was, in retrospect, improbable.

Had the site been discovered a decade earlier, before AMS radiocarbon dating could produce the precise dates that established the site’s antiquity, and before the molecular biology tools needed to attempt DNA analysis were available, the Windover excavation would have been less scientifically productive.