They are the biological descendants of the first coastal people — a population that has been on this specific coast, adapted to this specific marine environment, for approximately 10,000 years.

This finding carries implications that extend beyond the specific genetics.

It means that the cultural knowledge of the Northwest Coast peoples — the specific knowledge of this coast’s resources, its seasonal rhythms, its marine species, its weather patterns — has been accumulated and transmitted across approximately 10,000 years of continuous occupation.

The traditions of the Tlingit and the Haida and the Tsimshian and the other nations of the coast are not the products of a few centuries of adaptation but of a very long history of engagement with this specific place.

It means that the oral traditions of these peoples, which maintain accounts of their deep connections to the coast and to specific places on it, are not simply claims but are consistent with the biological evidence — they are the narrative traditions of people whose biological ancestors were indeed here, in these places, for this long.