The genome of a man buried in a Nevada cave more than ten thousand years ago said so.

The Kennewick Resolution

The Spirit Cave case did not exist in isolation.

Its resolution — the combination of DNA evidence and the negotiated repatriation that followed — was part of a broader transformation in how the science community and the legal system approached ancient Native American remains.

The Kennewick Man case, which had proceeded in parallel but along a very different legal trajectory, eventually reached its own resolution — one that reinforced the findings of the Spirit Cave analysis.

In 2015, ancient DNA was successfully extracted from the Kennewick Man’s remains and analyzed by a team led by Eske Willerslev — the same scientist who had analyzed the Spirit Cave Man’s genome.