For some participants, the reburial was the most important part of the entire Anzick story — more important than the genome, more important than the Nature paper, more important than the refutation of the Solutrean hypothesis.

It was the moment when the scientific community’s use of an ancient child’s remains was concluded and the child was returned to the care of the communities that understood themselves as his descendants and his relatives.

For others, including some Indigenous scholars and activists who were not directly involved in the process, the reburial raised questions about whether the consultation had been sufficiently broad and whether the communities most directly involved had been appropriately empowered to shape the research — not just to participate in its conclusion, but to determine from the beginning whether and how it should proceed.

These perspectives are not reconcilable into a single narrative of success or failure.