The family’s interests shaped the research questions.

The findings were communicated in ways that acknowledged the family’s prior knowledge and the limitations of what the science could establish.

But the existence of a well-conducted example does not resolve the broader policy questions about what standards should apply across the full range of research involving Indigenous ancestral remains.

Those standards are still being developed, contested, and refined through the engagement of researchers, Indigenous communities, institutional review boards, and governmental bodies.

The Sitting Bull study’s contribution to that conversation is not just the specific DNA findings it produced.