The specific demographic events of those 10,000 years, and their genetic consequences, would require much more ancient genomic data from many more individuals from across the time span to characterize in detail.

What can be said is that the Shuká Káa analysis provides strong evidence for the deep antiquity of the genetic ancestry now represented in Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples — that the people of the coast trace their biological ancestry to a founding coastal population that was already present 10,300 years ago, and that this ancestry has been maintained through the millennia as the primary genetic heritage of the region’s peoples.

This is a significant finding, worthy of careful articulation — and worthy of the respect that comes with articulating it correctly.

The Coastal Route and Why It Matters