In 2002, U.S.

District Judge John Jelderks issued a ruling siding with the scientists.

He found that the government had not adequately demonstrated cultural affiliation and that NAGPRA did not apply.

He ordered the remains made available for study.

The government and the tribes appealed.

In 2004, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — one of the most powerful federal appeals courts in the country — upheld Judge Jelderks’s ruling.

The court found that the remains, given their extraordinary age and the lack of definitive evidence linking them to any specific modern tribal group, did not meet the NAGPRA standard for repatriation.

The tribes had lost.

For now.

The remains were transferred to the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, which had agreed to house them and facilitate the scientific studies that would now proceed.