Ancient DNA analysis of the Spirit Cave individual, completed before repatriation in 2016, showed genetic affinities with contemporary Native Americans.

The Spirit Cave case provided an important precedent for the repatriation and study of very ancient remains.

The Kennewick Man case — a skeleton found along the Columbia River in Washington State in 1996, dated to roughly 8,900 calibrated years ago, whose repatriation was contested in federal court for nearly two decades before ancient DNA analysis confirmed affinities with contemporary Pacific Northwest and Plateau Native American peoples — was a vastly more contentious legal and political episode that influenced subsequent repatriation debates.

Kennewick Man’s genome was eventually published in 2015, before the remains were repatriated to a coalition of tribes in 2017.