But the trajectory from Shuká Káa’s early Holocene world to the complex cultures of the contact period was not a simple linear development.

The archaeological record of the Northwest Coast shows periods of change and apparent transformation as well as periods of continuity.

Different regions of the coast show different sequences of cultural development, reflecting both the specific local environments and resources and the specific demographic and social histories of different communities.

The relationship between the genetic continuity documented by the Shuká Káa analysis and the cultural changes visible in the archaeological record is not a simple one-to-one correspondence.

Genetic continuity — the persistence of founding ancestry in the population of a region — does not require cultural stasis.