The power of ancient DNA also creates a temptation to ask it to do too much.

Because the Spirit Cave result supported Native continuity, it can be tempting to treat genetics as the ultimate authority in debates over Indigenous identity and land.

That would be a mistake.

Genetic data can illuminate ancestry, but tribal nations are not defined by genetic tests.

Citizenship rules are determined by tribes themselves, not by commercial ancestry percentages or academic population models.

Political sovereignty does not depend on proving a particular DNA profile.

The Spirit Cave case should therefore not be used to suggest that tribes need genomes to validate who they are.

The DNA was important because a federal repatriation dispute had become entangled in biological arguments.

It answered those arguments on their own ground.

That is different from saying biology creates sovereignty.