The ceremony was an important moment, not just symbolically but as a demonstration that scientific research and Indigenous community interests do not have to be in opposition — that research can be conducted with genuine respect for Indigenous peoples and their relationships to their ancestors, and that the results of such research can be shared in ways that honor the communities involved.

The Anzick child’s reburial was attended by Native American people from multiple tribes, including Crow, Blackfeet, and others, who came to honor an ancestor they had never personally known but whom the genetic evidence confirmed was genuinely theirs.

The ceremony was, by all accounts, a deeply moving occasion — a moment when the abstract facts of population genetics and ancient DNA were translated into the specific human experience of people honoring their dead.

What the Genome Revealed