What is clear is that the man who had been, for decades, the most influential voice in Hunkpapa Lakota leadership was dead at approximately fifty-nine years old, killed in an arrest ordered by a federal reservation agent, carried out by Lakota men employed by the agency, on the reservation where the federal government had required him to live.

And in the hours after his death, people who had no legitimate authority over his possessions took things from his body and his surroundings — things that would spend more than a century in museum custody before being returned to his family.

The Eske Willerslev Research Group and Its Broader Work

The research group led by Eske Willerslev that conducted the Sitting Bull DNA study represents one of the most significant concentrations of ancient DNA expertise in the world, and situating the Sitting Bull work within that broader research program helps clarify its scientific significance.

Willerslev, who holds positions at both the University of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen, has been one of the central figures in the development of ancient DNA research over the past two decades.