The genomic analysis itself involved comparing Kennewick Man’s ancient genome to a database of modern human genomes from populations around the world, as well as to other ancient genomes that had been recovered from sites across the Americas and Eurasia.

The statistical methods used for this comparison are sophisticated and mathematically complex.

They are designed to identify patterns of genetic similarity and difference that reflect shared ancestry — the accumulated evidence of who was related to whom, encoded in the specific variants of each genetic position across the genome.

When these methods were applied to Kennewick Man’s genome, the result was unambiguous.

He was most closely related to Native Americans.

Not in the way that all modern humans are distantly related to each other through common ancestors who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago in Africa.

But in the specific, recent-ancestry sense that genealogists mean when they talk about shared family history — the accumulation of specific genetic variants passed down from common ancestors who lived within a few thousand years of Kennewick Man himself.

The findings placed Kennewick Man firmly within the genetic tree of Native American populations — and within that tree, his closest modern relatives were the peoples of the Pacific Northwest and the Columbia Plateau.

This was not a finding that required any particular interpretation or theoretical framework to understand.

It was a direct measurement: this ancient man’s genes look most like those of these modern people.