In the 1990s, obtaining a high-quality genome from a ten-thousand-year-old individual would have been exceptionally difficult.

Ancient DNA is usually fragmented and chemically damaged.

It can also be contaminated easily by modern human DNA from anyone who handled the remains.

By the 2010s, however, advances in sequencing, clean-room procedures, computational analysis, and the growing database of ancient and modern genomes had changed what was possible.

A question that had once been approached through skull measurements and archaeological interpretation could now potentially be examined directly through genetic ancestry.

That possibility might sound like an obvious solution.

It was not.

The DNA Problem

To many scientists, ancient DNA offered a way to resolve uncertainty.

If genetic material could be recovered from the Spirit Cave individual, it might show whether he was closely related to Native peoples of the Americas.