The publication of results through peer-reviewed channels made the findings available for scrutiny and discussion.

The engagement with Alaska Native communities and institutions as part of the research and communication process reflects the evolving standards for research involving Indigenous ancestral remains.

A Tooth and Its Implications for the Peopling of the Americas

The single deciduous incisor from Trail Creek Cave 2 is one of the smallest pieces of physical evidence in one of the biggest scientific debates in American science: when and how did people first arrive in the Americas, how many founding populations were there, and what was the demographic history of the hemisphere in the millennia that followed?

The Trail Creek tooth does not answer all of these questions — it was never going to, given what it is.