The “Longest Walk” of 1978 — in which Indigenous rights activists walked across the country, calling attention to various issues facing Native communities — specifically highlighted museums along the route that displayed Indigenous bones and grave goods.

The public attention generated by this action, and by the broader advocacy of organizations representing Native peoples, created the political conditions that would eventually produce legislation.

In 1976, according to the Deseret News account, federal law prohibited the display of Indian remains — an action that the Mammoth Cave administration acted on by removing the miner from his glass case.

Other accounts place the removal in the 1970s without specifying the exact year.

Whatever the precise timing, the decision reflected the changed understanding: that the display of ancient human remains, regardless of how scientifically interesting or historically significant those remains were, was not appropriate when those remains belonged to people whose descendants were living members of recognized tribal nations with standing to object.