We were there to test a specific hypothesis:

In 1940, British Colonial Officer Gerald Gallagher found a partial human skeleton at a supposed castaway’s campsite somewhere on this end of the island. Our analysis of the available information about that discovery leads us to suspect that the castaway was Earhart and that the discovery was made at the place we call the Seven Site.

1. Is there evidence at the site of the presence of a castaway?
2. Does the site fit Gallagher’s specific description of a fire, dead birds, and turtle?
3. Does anything about the site explain the presence of what appear to be man-made trails in a 1938 aerial photo taken before the island was officially inhabited?
4. Is a man-made hole at the site the place where a skull found by a work party was buried and later dug up by Gallagher?

Affirmative answers to some or all of these questions might confirm that we had found the place where the castaway had lived and died, but the biggest question was the last one:

Over the next twelve days, explorations and excavations at the Seven Site revealed a rich and complex array of hidden features. As with most archaeological sites, several kinds of activity over the years have left a jumble of evidence that must be carefully sorted out. It is apparent, for example, that a large water tank and a variety of construction materials were brought to the site by the colonists at some time, probably before the war. Also, during the war, American servicemen from the U.S. Coast Guard Loran station came to the site on one or more occasions for informal target practice with their .30 caliber M-1 carbines (as evidenced by numerous shell casings and the shattered remains of at least two ceramic plates, one of which bears the Coast Guard logo). However, not all of the artifacts can be reliably ascribed to these known activities – quite the contrary.