For the early inhabitants of the Snake River Plain, salmon would have been a seasonally abundant and nutritionally dense food source.

The isotopic evidence strongly suggests the Buhl Woman was taking advantage of this resource.

This is where the problem becomes acute.

If she ate substantial quantities of fish that were themselves enriched with radiocarbon-dead carbon from the freshwater reservoir, and if this carbon was incorporated into her bone collagen — the material that was then radiocarbon dated — then the date derived from her bone would appear older than her actual age at death.

By how much?