James thought for a minute, then shook his head.  “It’s too early in the day for that.  How about we finish setting our canvas and set the sectors we want to work this trip?  Then maybe we can talk about it over dinner.  I am afraid my theories are the stuff of novels as well.  But I have a few facts to back them up - just enough to get us in trouble if we wanted to write a good sci fi.”

But he smiled faintly and walked over for a sample bag and a coated rod for taking a scraping.  He brought it over and handed it to her.  “But how about we get that scraping first?  Sooner we get it, less chance of contamination.”  As soon as she had a good hold of the bag he grabbed her by her upper legs just above the knees and lifted effortlessly nearly as far as he could lift.  It was plenty.  He had been right.  Just sitting on his shoulders wouldn’t have been quite enough - short by a couple feet.  When he lowered her he let her drop a few feet catching her effortlessly under her arms.  He smiled again faintly.  His eyes had rested on her key feature that attracted most men for just a moment.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71BFgCmr%2B7L._SX425_.jpg

He was all business for the next few hours, a hard worker, professional.  Perhaps the woman had gotten more of what she bargained for than she hoped.  But the truth was James was just a private man.  He had to be.  There was noone else like him on Earth.    Finally it was time for dinner.  Their sectional tent had one compartment each for the pair, plus a common area as well as a portable privy.  To James it was overly luxurious, but also a necessity as it offered a protected spot to study finds.

James started up dinner, something else he found amusing.  Times had certainly changed.  In his youth the woman would have done all the cooking.  But he was trying to blend.

“So my Pathfinder.  First, let’s make a timeline.”  He had opened up his laptop to a timeline he had already created.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Human_timeline

4.0 MYA stone tools comparable to those found in the 3.4 MYA find of the Lower Awash Valley in Ethiopia were discovered in the 18th century . The records were lost but Charles Darwin once mentioned them in a letter to a friend.  This letter is no longer on record.  

3.2 MYA Fire use discovered at a site.  But the age of the site was largely contested.  The oldest confirmed site of fire use is 1.5 MYA.  Mentioned in the journal of the Egyptologist Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie but lost to time.

1.5 MYA Cooking use.  Here.  If the tests confirm that cooking was done.  The earliest confirmed cooking is 790 kYA.

750 kYA Clothing found - furs laced together.  But clothing has only been confirmed as old as 72 kYA.

A few other sites were also mentioned.  Two were the sites Harie had referred to in her research.  One was one she had yet to see.  Most of the ones on the list were unknown locations lost to time.  But it was very clear that James had done his own research.  But much would never be accepted in a dissertation.

“Before you say it, I know.  Lack of substantiation.  I’d be laughed out of any university if I tried to use this list for anything BUT a work of fiction.  But do you see the pattern.  And look at the path through time.”

He traced his finger along the path up out of Africa.  Tool use during the time of Australopithecus.  Then his Pathfinder uses fire on his way out of Africa along the Nile - over a million years ahead of his time.

“Are you seeing the pattern.  He is behaving like Homo Erectus during the time of Homo Habilis.  It is as though he is a step ahead along the evolutionary ladder.  Clothing over half a million years ahead of the rest of mankind.  So it begs the question:  is he one man living forever like Methuselah?  Or does ever generation produce an evolutionary progenitor?  Or is HE the progenitor somehow?”

James shrugged.  “You asked.  Like I said.  It makes for an interesting fiction.”