The name Shuká Káa — Man Ahead of Us — was given by the Tlingit people of southeastern Alaska, and it represents a specific cultural and spiritual response to the discovery of such ancient remains in their ancestral territory.

The Tlingit are one of the major Indigenous nations of southeastern Alaska, with a complex and sophisticated culture that has been shaped by millennia of life on this specific coast.

The clan system, the potlatch tradition, the art style characterized by formalized animal imagery, the complex ceremonial practices — all of these reflect a deep engagement with the specific environment of the Southeast Alaskan coast and a long history of organization and governance adapted to the resources and challenges of that environment.

For the Tlingit, the discovery of ancient human remains in a cave on Prince of Wales Island was not simply an archaeological event.