Just to remind everyone, there were only 13 bones found, including the skull and jaw. That leaves some 93 bones that were not discovered in 1940, and that are, or at least were at some point, left behind on Niku.
One of our goals during the upcoming trip is to expand our search by prospecting a bit in the areas surrounding the 7 site in hopes of locating those bones, particularly the vertebrae which were conspicuously missing from those found in 1940. The pig taphonomy experiment demonstrated that the crabs get bored with a carcass once it dries out, and the spinal column, among other parts, gets left behind. Other predators, such as coyotes, also leave behind the spinal column as there is too much effort and not enough meat to make it worth working on. We've also found spinal columns of both shark and dolphin on the beach left behind by all the scavengers, so I think we have ample evidence that spinal columns stand a good chance of being abandoned by the scavengers of Niku once they dry out. If we can find more bones, the DNA testing will follow.
Andrew McKenna