[yencabulator]

Fun fact: The Navajo speak of the Anasazi ("ancient enemies"/"ancient ones") as the tribe that used to occupy the land they later lived on, and explicitly consider them to be "those who are different from our people", not their own tribe.

[Suppafly]

That's awesome. Here a group of nomadic plains Indians shut down research into ancient mounds built by totally different prehistoric people. I get that some of these issues need to have some sensitivity around them, and research in the past wasn't always done with the appropriate level of reverence, but the pendulum has swung the other way now where we give too much credence towards avoiding hurt feelings that have no basis in reality.

[solardev]

Wouldn't you want informed consent if a scientist wanted to dig up your relatives' graves for research? It's just a scientific ethics question, combined with sovereignty issues. You want to do research on someone else's land in a different jurisdiction, it makes sense to know their laws and ask them for permission first.

Without safeguards like that you end up with HeLa and such.

[Suppafly]

Sure if it was my actual relatives, I'm not worried about people I'm definitely not descended from that lives several thousands of years ago though. The pendulum has swung too far in favor of people claiming ownership to graves that have no relationship to them.