The precise route or routes by which the founding population of the Americas moved southward from Beringia is still debated — the coastal migration hypothesis, which suggests that people moved along the Pacific Coast rather than through an interior ice-free corridor, is supported by growing evidence but not yet definitively proven.

The timing and number of founding migration events is still uncertain.

The specific genetic relationship between the Western Stemmed Tradition people, of whom the Spirit Cave Man was part, and the Clovis tradition people has not been fully resolved.

And the deeper questions — the questions that genetics can never fully answer — remain as open as they have always been.

What did the first Great Basin people know about the landscape they inhabited?

What did they believe about the world?