The ability to recover meaningful genetic information from biological material that was previously considered too degraded for reliable analysis opens possibilities for both scientific research and for repatriation-related investigations — the ability to confirm relationships between museum-held remains and living descendants being one of the more immediate applications.

The History of Ancient DNA Research

The field of ancient DNA research — the study of genetic material preserved in archaeological and historical specimens — has developed with remarkable speed over the past four decades, and the Sitting Bull study represents one thread in a much broader scientific story.

The first successful recovery and analysis of ancient DNA was reported in 1984, when researchers extracted DNA from preserved tissue of a quagga, an extinct relative of the zebra.

In the decades that followed, the field expanded rapidly, driven by improvements in sequencing technology that allowed researchers to analyze increasingly small and degraded samples.