The decision about whether and how to analyze the ancient remains, what research questions to pursue, and what would eventually happen to the remains after research was complete were all matters in which the relevant Native communities had standing and authority.

This standing and authority is not merely a legal formality — it reflects the genuine relationship between living Indigenous peoples and their ancestral past.

For the Tlingit and Haida people of southeastern Alaska, Shuká Káa is not simply a scientific specimen.

He is an ancestor — a member of the long chain of people who have lived on this coast, and therefore someone whose remains deserve the kind of respectful treatment that living communities extend to their dead.

The genetic finding of deep continuity between Shuká Káa and the later coastal peoples strengthens this relationship in a specific way: it provides scientific evidence for what the Tlingit and Haida communities already maintained through their own traditions — that their connection to this coast is ancient and deep.