The Windover materials are the remains of people — not just artifacts in the conventional sense.

Their curation in a museum and university setting exists in the post-NAGPRA landscape where the legal and ethical obligations of institutions holding Native American human remains and associated materials have been substantially clarified and where the expectations of descendant and affiliated communities must be considered.

How those obligations apply specifically to Windover — given the difficulty of establishing specific tribal affiliation for a community that lived 8,000 years ago — is a matter that the relevant institutions have had to navigate.

The general framework of NAGPRA requires consultation with potentially affiliated tribes even when the affiliation is uncertain, and the principles that NAGPRA embodies — that Native American human remains deserve respectful treatment and that descendant communities have a voice in decisions about those remains — apply regardless of whether specific affiliation can be established.