The Native Village of Tanana, the Healy Lake Village Council, and other Athabascan communities were engaged in conversations about the research as it developed.

These conversations were not always simple.

The communities involved have their own understandings of their history and their relationships to the landscape of the Tanana Valley — understandings that do not always map directly onto the categories and methods of population genetics.

Questions about what the ancient remains could tell them, about who the infants were in terms of their community’s historical understanding, and about how the scientific findings should be communicated publicly, were discussed as part of an ongoing relationship between the researchers and the communities.

The specific decision to pursue genetic analysis of the USR1 remains — a decision that required extracting material from the bones of an infant — was made within this consultation framework.