The specific application of the method to Sitting Bull’s hair was, in a sense, a proof of concept for a capability that has much broader relevance.

The researchers selected this case in part because the combination of a well-documented individual (Sitting Bull), a family whose relationship to him was established through oral history and documentary records (the LaPointe family), and a biological sample that presented genuine technical challenges (the degraded hair) made it an ideal test case for the method.

That the test produced results consistent with the established family history was simultaneously a scientific validation of the method and a confirmation of what the family had always known — two different kinds of significance that the study carried at once.

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