No living tribe can claim biological descent from individuals who lived 7,000 to 8,500 years ago — not in any way that can be demonstrated through the currently available evidence.

The language spoken by the ancient Texans is unknown.

Their specific cultural practices are known only through archaeology.

The communities they belonged to have no unbroken institutional continuity into the present.

But the legal standard under NAGPRA — and under the Texas state laws that applied to sites like Bering Sinkhole — does not require proof of direct biological descent.

It requires a reasonable determination that a contemporary group has cultural or biological affiliation with the ancient remains.

And in the absence of clear evidence pointing away from a particular group, the law tends to default in favor of the geographically nearest federally recognized tribe.