The concept of cultural affiliation — the legal standard used under NAGPRA to determine which modern communities have a claim on ancient remains — is a Western legal concept that does not capture the full range of ways in which Indigenous communities understand their relationships to ancient people found in their traditional territories.

For many Athabascan people, the question of whether USR1 was a biological ancestor of their specific community is less important than the question of whether she was a person found in their land — a person who deserves to be treated with respect regardless of whether she can be biologically linked to any specific modern family line.

The land itself creates a form of relationship.

The responsibility to care for those found in your territory extends to those who have been there for twelve thousand years as surely as to those who have been there for two generations.