The further back in time you go, the more tenuous the connection between ancient individuals and any specific modern community becomes.

At 10,000 years ago, cultural affiliations are uncertain.

At 12,000 years ago, they are essentially unknowable through the archaeological and biological evidence currently available.

The linguistic, political, and cultural formations that define modern tribal identities took shape over the intervening millennia through processes that archaeological methods cannot fully reconstruct.

The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ claim to the Buhl remains was based primarily on geographic proximity — the burial was found in what has historically been part of their territorial range.

This is the principle embedded in Idaho’s state repatriation law: return to the geographically nearest federally recognized tribe.