What can be said is that the site remains part of a living relationship between a specific landscape and a specific community, and that the legal recognition of that relationship — achieved through the DNA analysis and the subsequent repatriation — gave formal acknowledgment to something that the Tribe had always understood.

The Long History Of Great Basin Archaeology

Spirit Cave is one of many important archaeological sites in the Great Basin, and understanding it fully requires placing it within the broader context of Great Basin archaeological research — a field with a rich and sometimes contentious history of its own.

The Great Basin was one of the regions where American archaeology developed some of its most influential theoretical frameworks in the twentieth century.

The work of Julian Steward, who developed the concept of cultural ecology — the study of how cultures adapt to their specific environments — was based largely on his research with Great Basin peoples, particularly the Western Shoshone.