Community members who believe that the remains should be reburied and left to return to the earth in peace may find even the museum display inappropriate.

The current arrangement — the Ice Maiden in the National Museum of the Republic of Altai, displayed for limited periods, available for study within negotiated terms — is a compromise, not a resolution.

It reflects the genuine difficulty of the underlying conflict of values.

The Ice Maiden’s situation has informed subsequent discussions of archaeological practice in Russia and in other countries with significant indigenous communities and significant archaeological heritage.

The principle that indigenous community consultation is necessary before excavating burials, and that community interests in the disposition of ancestral remains must be taken seriously, has been strengthened by the controversies that followed the 1993 discovery.