







































ARESTY RUTGERS UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL, VOLUME I, ISSUE V 

 

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THE IMPACT OF DNA 

ANALYSIS TECHNOLOGY 

ON THE RATE OF 

NAGPRA REPATRIATIONS 
 

EMILY KANE 

 

✵ ABSTRACT 
This paper investigates whether recent ad-

vancements in DNA analysis technology have im-

pacted the rate with which Native American remains 

are repatriated, or returned, to linear descendants 

or culturally affiliated tribes. The purpose of this 

study is to determine whether DNA analysis technol-

ogy has effected repatriation rates specifically in Na-

tive American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act 

(NAGPRA) cases. This paper compiles information 

for all NAGPRA notices published in the National 

Register to conduct a statistical analysis of the rate 

of repatriations between 2011 and 2021. The result-

ing figures demonstrate that DNA analysis technol-

ogy had an extremely slight effect on the rate of re-

patriation. The paper then concludes that this may 

be due to the difficulties in implementing DNA anal-

ysis as a culturally acceptable Archaeological meth-

odology. 

 

1 INTRODUCTION 
The Native American Grave Protection and 

Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), signed into law on No-

vember 16, 1990, establishes a system for return of 

“human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, 

or objects of cultural patrimony” that can be identi-

fied as “Native American” or “Native Hawaiian'' to 

their lineal descendants or to a culturally affiliated 

present-day Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organi-

zation (43 - NAGPRA). Such a system, which inter-

twines the theory-based practices of Archaeology 

and the precision of the law, only requires archaeol-

ogists to be able to prove lineal descent or cultural 

affiliation of remains by a preponderance of evi-

dence (43 - NAGPRA).  

Although the use of DNA for identification 

began in the 1980's, the use of DNA to determine 

genetic links between subjects of study and pre-

sent-day populations in NAGPRA cases did not 

begin until the 2010’s. For more than 20 years, re-

mains found in the United States were repatriated 

under NAGPRA based on more subjective identifi-

cation methods like oral history, location of remains, 

physical analyses, and cultural similarities between 

ancient remains and present-day groups. However, 

a NAGPRA case, referred to in this paper as 

“Kennewick Man'', gained international attention 

when craniometric and dental analyses (methods of 

analysis that measure the skull and assess the teeth 

of an individual, respectively) made beginning in 

the 1990’s were disproven by DNA analysis in 2015 

(Rasmussen 455). Widespread interest in this partic-

ular case prompted the study of the effect that DNA 

analysis technology has had on other NAGPRA 

cases in the remainder of this paper.  

The following paper seeks to investigate the 

overall trend in the use of DNA analysis in NAGPRA 

cases to determine the linear descent or cultural af-

filiation of human remains. This paper will derive its 

information from the notices that are required to be 

published in the Federal Register by NAGPRA law. 

Using notices published in the last ten calendar 

years, this paper will demonstrate the frequency 

with which DNA analysis is used in NAGPRA cases. 

It will also reveal the significance of DNA analysis in 

the overall rate of repatriations. Finally, it will discuss 

the implications of my findings on the future use of 

DNA analysis in the determination of linear descent 

or cultural affiliation in NAGPRA cases. 

 

2 CASE STUDY: KENNEWICK MAN 
“Kennewick Man'' refers to a male Native 

American from the Early Holocene whose remains 

were found on July 28, 1996 along the Columbia 

River in Kennewick, Washington (Rasmussen 455). 

Upon the discovery of these remains, multiple Na-

tive American groups from the Pacific Northwest 

claimed that Kennewick Man was their ancestor and 

sought to rebury him (Rasmussen 455). In 2004 case 



ARESTY RUTGERS UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL, VOLUME I, ISSUE V 

 

 

Bonnichsen v. United States, the United States Court 

of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that 

Kennewick Man’s remains could not be repatriated 

under NAGPRA solely based on their estimated age 

of 8,340–9,200 years old and could, therefore, be 

studied by scientists (United States Court of Appeals 

and Rasmussen 455). At the time of the court’s rul-

ing, DNA analysis technology was not advanced 

enough to extract ancient DNA from Kennewick 

Man’s remains. Instead, scientists continued to use 

craniometric analysis to attribute these remains to 

the Ainu, a native group of Japan, and Native Poly-

nesians (Owsley). 

In 2015, a laboratory in Denmark extracted 

ancient DNA from Kennewick Man’s remains and 

found that he is more closely related to Native 

Americans than to any other living group in the 

world (Rasmussen 455). This was determined by the 

presence of mitochondrial haplogroup X2a and the 

Y-chromosome haplogroup Q-M3, both of which 

are uniparental lineage groups that share a com-

mon ancestor (Rasmussen 455). These haplogroups 

are found almost exclusively in modern Native 

Americans (Rasmussen 455). Kennewick Man's re-

mains were repatriated to the Confederated Tribes 

of the Colville Reservation because their gene sam-

ple shared enough similarities with Kennewick 

Man’s DNA to prove they were direct descendants 

of the population to which Kennewick Man once be-

longed (Rasmussen 457). The remains were re-

turned on February 17, 2017 and buried the follow-

ing day. 

 

3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 
This paper seeks to answer three primary 

questions: (1) Since the initial citation of DNA analy-

sis technology as an Archaeological tool in NAGPRA 

cases, a trend in how frequently NAGPRA cases 

have been decided using genetic evidence be ob-

served?; (2) Has the use of DNA analysis in NAGPRA 

cases contributed to the rate of repatriations over-

all? (3) What conclusions can be drawn from the fre-

quency with which genetic information has been 

used in the determination of linear descent of hu-

man remains in NAGPRA cases regarding the 

effectiveness and accessibility of DNA analysis tech-

nology?  

 

4 METHODS 
The findings of this paper are drawn from 

notices published regarding the repatriation or 

transfer of human remains and cultural items to Na-

tive American or Native Hawaiian groups. There are 

three types of notices that may be required, de-

pending on the nature of the items in question (“No-

tices”). Notices of inventory completion are pub-

lished by the Federal Register “when a museum or 

federal agency determines human remains and as-

sociated funerary objects are culturally affiliated or 

offers to transfer human remains that are not cultur-

ally affiliated” (“Notices”). Notices of intent to repat-

riate are published by the Federal Register “when a 

request for repatriation of unassociated funerary 

objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patri-

mony is received and accepted” (“Notices”). And fi-

nally, Notices of intended disposition are published 

in newspapers “when a Federal agency has identi-

fied the appropriate person or group with priority 

for disposition of the human remains or cultural 

items” (“Notices”). The research conducted in this 

paper will only focus on notices of intent to repatri-

ate and notices of inventory completion for two rea-

sons. First, notices of intent to repatriate and notices 

of inventory completion require summaries of re-

mains in question to contain “sufficient detail so as 

to enable the recipients to determine their interest”, 

whereas notices of intended disposition require 

only “information as to the nature and affiliation” of 

remains in question (43 - NAGPRA). And second, 

notices of intent to repatriate and notices of inven-

tory completion can be accessed by the public 

through the website of the Federal Register, 

whereas notices of intended disposition are pub-

lished in newspapers surrounding the area where 

the remains in question were discovered, which do 

not all grant the public access to their articles (43 - 

NAGPRA).  

First, relevant documents were compiled by 

conducting an advanced search on the website of 

the Federal Register. This utilized keyword searches 

of “NAGPRA, DNA” and “NAGPRA, genetic” and a 



ARESTY RUTGERS UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL, VOLUME I, ISSUE V 

 

 

selection of “notices” under “Document Category”. 

This search yielded a list of 28 NAGPRA notices that 

cited the use of DNA/genetic analysis in the discus-

sion of the remains in question.  

Then, an additional search was conducted 

on the website of the Federal Register using a key-

word search of “NAGPRA” and a selection of “no-

tices”. This search yielded a list of all NAGPRA no-

tices published by the Federal Register. This search 

yielded notices published to make corrections to 

those previously published; such notices were in-

cluded in the total because corrections could have 

been made to information regarding the use of 

DNA analysis. This search yielded notices published 

to withdraw previously published notices entirely; 

these were not included in the total because the in-

formation they contained did not contribute to a 

successful repatriation. For the same reason, all no-

tices that were withdrawn were also excluded from 

the total. 

 

5 FINDINGS 
These searches yielded 28 notices pub-

lished in the Federal Register that cited the use of 

DNA analysis in the determination of lineal descent 

or cultural affiliation. On average, 3 notices citing 

DNA analysis were published each year for the last 

ten years. However, most often only one notice cit-

ing DNA analysis was published per year. The high-

est amount of notices citing DNA analysis published 

(five) occurred in 2015, which was the year that 

Kennewick Man’s case gained international atten-

tion. But despite this momentary boom in cases, 

DNA analysis did not continue to see increased use 

in NAGPRA cases. In fact, the lowest amount of no-

tices citing DNA analysis published (zero) occurred 

later in 2018. 

Furthermore, the years with the highest and 

lowest number of notices published citing the use 

of DNA analysis did not coincide with the years with 

the highest and lowest number of total notices pub-

lished. In fact, the highest number of notices pub-

lished per year (212) occurred in 2018, the same 

year that yielded zero publications citing DNA anal-

ysis. The lowest number of notices published per 

year (131) occurred in 2011, the first year that DNA 

analysis was cited in a NAGPRA notice. On average, 

172 NAGPRA notices have been published per year 

since 2011. 

 

 

FIGURE 1: Frequency of NAGPRA Notices Published Per Year Compared to Frequency of NAGPRA Notices Citing 

DNA Analysis Published Per Year 

4 1 5 1 5 2 2 0 4 3 1

131

175
161

194

142

165
176

212
202

163 169

0

50

100

150

200

250

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

# of NAGPRA Notices citing DNA Analysis in Determination of Affiliation

# of Total NAGPRA Notices



ARESTY RUTGERS UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL, VOLUME I, ISSUE V 

 

 

 
FIGURE 2: Scatter Plot of Number of NAGPRA Cases Citing DNA Analysis Per Year Versus Number of Total NAGPRA 

Cases Per Year 

 

 
FIGURE 3: Calculation of Pearson r 

0

50

100

150

200

250

0 1 2 3 4 5 6



ARESTY RUTGERS UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL, VOLUME I, ISSUE V 

 

 

Findings regarding the lack of coinci-

dence between the minimum and maximum 

values in each of these data sets leads to the 

next research question: Has the use of DNA 

analysis in NAGPRA cases contributed to the 

rate of repatriations overall? In other words, 

what is the correlation, if any, between the num-

ber of NAGPRA cases published citing DNA 

analysis and the total number of NAGPRA 

cases? This information will illustrate how the 

use of DNA analysis has contributed to the ease 

with which repatriations can be made. It is evi-

dent in FIGURES 1 AND 2 that the number of 

NAGPRA notices published citing DNA analysis 

has little to do with the total number of NAGPRA 

notices published in a given year, but calcula-

tion of the Pearson r value will reveal exactly 

how interrelated these two data sets are by 

yielding a value between -1.00 (strong negative 

correlation) and +1.00 (strong positive correla-

tion), with a value of 0.00 indicating no correla-

tion. 

The above calculation of Pearson r 

shows that the correlation between the number 

of NAGPRA cases citing DNA analysis and the 

total number of NAGPRA cases in a given year 

is extremely slight. When the value of the Pear-

son r is squared, it yields the coefficient of de-

termination, a value that represents the percent 

of information contained in the Y value that can 

be learned from the X value (Sprinthall 277). In 

the context of this paper, only 0.0025%, the 

value of r squared, of the information repre-

sented by the value of total NAGPRA cases in a 

given year can be learned from the number of 

NAGPRA cases per year that cite DNA analysis. 

This means that the use of DNA analysis in the 

determination of lineal descent or cultural affili-

ation has had almost no effect on the overall rate 

of repatriations taking place.  

 

6 DISCUSSION 
The findings of this paper state that No-

tices of Intent to Repatriate and Notices of In-

ventory Completion do not demonstrate a rela-

tionship between the number of notices 

published citing DNA analysis and the total 

number of notices published in a given year be-

cause the values of Pearson r and the coefficient 

of determination were too low to suggest a re-

lationship of any significance. But it is also im-

portant to acknowledge some of this paper’s 

more obvious limitations before generalizing 

any further. One cannot make any claims re-

garding all NAGPRA cases from the past ten 

years because the entirety of that information is 

not accessible to the public. One also cannot 

use notices of intent to repatriate and notices of 

inventory completion as a sample and general-

ize our findings to the entire population of no-

tices published. Each type of notice is published 

for different types of NAGPRA cases, making 

them inherently different. Therefore, the sample 

would not be representative of the population if 

it only included two of the three types of notices. 

One also cannot make any claims as to the 

cause of the relationship between the number 

of notices published citing DNA analysis and the 

total number of notices published in a given 

year. However, one can use the information that 

the data provides to support more qualitative 

assertions and inform an approach to NAGPRA 

cases in the future.  

The priority of the remainder of this sec-

tion will be to demystify the reasons why the 

seemingly simple integration of DNA analysis 

into NAGPRA has not occurred on a scale that 

would suggest this apparent simplicity. Upon 

hearing the story of Kennewick Man, one could 

easily assume that DNA analysis is an easy way 

to minimize error in the field of Archaeology 

and exceed the standard of proof required in 

NAGPRA regulations. However, there are a mul-

titude of factors that limit its use in most institu-

tions. One example of such limitations is the 

quality of preservation of the remains in ques-

tion. DNA degrades when exposed to ultravio-

let radiation, moisture, temperature fluctua-

tions, and soil acidity, therefore poor environ-

mental factors can automatically eliminate the 

possibility of using DNA analysis on remains to 

determine lineal descent or cultural affiliation 



ARESTY RUTGERS UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL, VOLUME I, ISSUE V 

 

 

(Schablitsky). Another possible limitation is con-

tamination of DNA. As Schablitsky et. al. state, 

DNA contamination can occur in the field or in 

the lab. To prevent DNA contamination by han-

dling remains, sterile tools and DNA tests of 

handlers may be required (Schablitsky). Cross-

contamination can also occur when handling 

multiple artifacts containing genetic information 

or when using chemicals to enhance degraded 

DNA (Schablitsky). It is recommended that Ar-

chaeologists only use laboratories that follow 

“DNA clean” procedures and to conduct testing 

multiple times and different laboratories 

(Schablitsky). The addition of extra equipment, 

higher sterility standards, and additional testing 

can present budgetary issues for institutions 

looking to use DNA analysis in NAGPRA cases. 

In addition to the practical complica-

tions that the use of DNA analysis presents, us-

ing genetic information to determine lineal de-

scent or cultural affiliation in NAGPRA cases pre-

sents additional cultural complications. In a pa-

per by Ann M. Kakaliouras, “Aboriginalism”, the 

concept which suggests that “indigenous peo-

ple form a class of humans with unique qualities 

and abilities that are not shared by nonaborigi-

nals” is introduced as a concern regarding in-

digenous archaeology, the term “aboriginal” re-

ferring to indigenous people and the term 

“nonaboriginal” referring to Western, nonindig-

enous people. But we can certainly extrapolate 

that this concern would only be amplified by the 

introduction of genetic information. As stated 

by Schablitsky et. al., “Although the genetic var-

iation within traditional conceived races is much 

greater than that between them, differences ex-

ist in the frequencies with which certain genetic 

variants occur in populations of differing bioge-

ographic ancestry.” However, the cultural impli-

cations of such research can have the negative 

effect of implying genetic difference between 

races to general audiences. Even the use of ge-

netic information to determine cultural affilia-

tion can be misguided because genetic similar-

ities are not a requirement for affiliation with the 

group. Genetic information can even be used to 

negate cultural evidence of affiliation, therefore 

creating a hierarchy of evidence that places 

modern science over ancient indigenous beliefs 

(Kakaliouras). Furthermore, the overall effect 

that these conditions can have on the relation-

ship between scientists and Native Americans 

limits archaeologists’ ability to facilitate the nec-

essary collaborations to conduct genetic testing 

in NAGPRA cases.  

 

7 CONCLUSION 
While the overall impact that DNA anal-

ysis technology has had on the rate of repatria-

tions under NAGPRA may be meager, the infor-

mation gleaned from this research will have 

many applications for future archaeologists. 

First, existing data demonstrates that the rate of 

successful repatriations can increase without 

the aid of DNA analysis technologies so scien-

tists and Native American organizations need 

not worry about increasing the use of DNA anal-

ysis to facilitate more repatriations of remains 

and associated funerary objects. And second, 

even if a new technology provides stronger evi-

dence than previous methods of analysis, pro-

cedural and financial barriers may exist which 

limit it’s implementation. However, seemingly 

effective technologies can have unforeseen re-

percussions for the people they aim to help. In 

the case of DNA analysis, rather than pushing 

the technology to be used more frequently, a 

better course of action would be to assess its 

cultural significance within Native American 

communities to see if it aligns with that of West-

ernized (and predominantly white) science. 

Such conversations should occur during confer-

ences with indigenous groups required by 

NAGPRA legislation and should become com-

monplace before any revisions are made to the 

budgets of individual institutions or to NAGPRA 

regulations as a whole∎  

  



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WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2015/06/19/SCIENCE/NEW-DNA-

RESULTS-SHOW-KENNEWICK-MAN-WAS-NATIVE-AMERI-

CAN.HTM 

  



ARESTY RUTGERS UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL, VOLUME I, ISSUE V 

 

 

Emily Kane is a class of 2024 graduate from Rutgers School of Arts and 

Sciences. She majored in anthropology and minored in archaeology, 

art history, and psychology. Her interest in anthropology and archae-

ology is focused on North American archaeology and Indigenous ar-

cheology. In her time at Rutgers, Emily has assisted with research in 

The Department of Anthropology Laboratory for MicroArchaeology 

(ALMA) under anthropology professor Dr. Dan Cabanes, working on 

FTIR analysis, phytolith analysis, and charcoal analysis. Separately, she 

conducted literature-based research on the Indigenous archeology 

movement and how it has and will impact North American archeology 

for a class taught by anthropology professor Dr. Pilar Rau, titled “Indig-

enous Rights and Wrongs”. She is currently completing an honors the-

sis on the bias in methods of sex estimation of the human pelvis. Emily 

has interned at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Jersey State 

Museum, and Middlesex County Division of Historic Sites to pursue a 

career in which her knowledge of anthropology and archaeology can 

be applied in a practical setting. She will be attending the University of 

Florida in the fall of 2024 to earn a master’s in anthropology. 


