The limestone ridge that contains it, the forest that surrounds it, the waters below — all of these are present in the landscape of the Alexander Archipelago as they were when Shuká Káa was alive, changed by 10,300 years of ecological and geological history but recognizable as part of the same physical world.

The cave is on land that is within or near the boundaries of the Tongass National Forest and is subject to the jurisdictional frameworks that govern archaeological and cultural resources in that area, including the consultation requirements that recognize the interests of Native communities in the management of their ancestral territories.

For the Tlingit and Haida people of southeastern Alaska, the cave and the discovery it contained are part of an ongoing story of engagement with their ancestral past.

The name Shuká Káa remains in use as the way the ancient individual is known, and the broader significance of the discovery — its contribution to understanding the deep antiquity of coastal Native occupation — is part of the community’s relationship with the scientific and archaeological record of their history.