The legal framework of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which governs the treatment of ancient human remains and cultural items found on federal land, requires assessments of cultural affiliation between ancient materials and modern tribes.

The older the remains, the harder those assessments are to make with confidence — but the difficulty of making them does not eliminate the ethical and legal obligations involved.

The footprints at White Sands are not human remains in the sense that NAGPRA primarily addresses — they are impressions, not bones or objects.

But the people who made them are part of the human history of the American Southwest, and the Indigenous peoples of that region have legitimate interests in how that history is told, investigated, and interpreted.

Several Native nations with traditional territories and cultural connections to the broader region of southern New Mexico have engaged with the White Sands research at various levels.

The park service has conducted consultation with tribal nations in accordance with its federal obligations.