But the broader ethical questions about who has authority over ancient remains, and what rights Indigenous communities have to be consulted about research on their ancestors, apply here as they apply elsewhere.

The relationship between genetics researchers and Indigenous communities has not always been comfortable.

Early genetics studies were sometimes conducted without adequate consultation with the communities whose ancestral materials were being studied.

Results were sometimes published in ways that Indigenous communities found harmful or disrespectful — oversimplifying complex cultural identities, ignoring the communities’ own understandings of their ancestry, or treating genetic data as a more authoritative source about Indigenous identity than Indigenous communities’ own knowledge.

The field has been working, with uneven success, to build better relationships between researchers and Indigenous communities — to involve communities in research design, to ensure that research results are communicated respectfully and accurately, and to recognize that genetic data is one kind of knowledge about ancestry among many, not a definitive arbiter of Indigenous identity.