Doran knew the site warranted serious excavation.

He also knew that a proper excavation of a wet archaeological site — a site beneath a pond, requiring dewatering, careful sediment control, and the preservation of what turned out to be extraordinarily fragile organic material — would be expensive and complex.

It took two years to raise the funding needed for full-scale investigation.

During that time, the bones stayed in various temporary locations — first Swann’s garage, then a trailer on the construction site, where workers reportedly stubbed their toes on the containers holding them.

It is one of the more humanizing details in the story of Windover: two years of awkward custody over ancient human remains while the mechanisms of academic funding ground slowly forward.