It is a moral and political one, and the American legal system has tried to provide a framework for answering it.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 was passed after decades of advocacy by Indigenous peoples who had watched their ancestors excavated from burial grounds, stored in museum collections, and used as objects of scientific study without the knowledge or consent of any living community connected to them.

The law established that Native American human remains and associated cultural items held by federal agencies and institutions receiving federal funding must be inventoried, affiliated tribes must be consulted, and repatriation must occur upon tribal request when cultural affiliation can be established.

At very ancient sites like Bering Sinkhole and Buckeye Knoll, the cultural affiliation question becomes genuinely difficult.