For the tribe, the proposal carried an obvious cost.

Testing ancient remains generally requires removing material from a tooth or bone.

However small the sample, the process is destructive.

A community that had spent years arguing that an ancestor should no longer be treated as a scientific specimen was being asked to authorize another scientific procedure on his body.

That created a painful paradox.

If the tribe refused testing, opponents of repatriation could continue pointing to uncertainty.

If the tribe allowed testing, it would be permitting the kind of physical intervention it had sought to end.

The decision therefore involved more than whether genetic science was accurate.

It involved trust.

Who would conduct the testing?