The principle that Indigenous peoples have the right to determine what happens to the remains of their ancestors is not merely a legal requirement imposed by NAGPRA and its state analogues.

It is a recognition of a wrong that was done — the collection and display and study of Indigenous human remains without consent, over many decades of American museum and academic practice — and an attempt to begin addressing that wrong.

The Buhl burial was treated as a scientific object from the moment it was found.

The emergency excavation, the physical analysis, the radiocarbon dating, the isotopic work — all of these were conducted on an individual who died more than 12,000 years ago and who had no living descendants who were consulted about any of it.

The repatriation returned decision-making authority to the community the state law identified as most closely affiliated.