NEVADA - Mystery Of The Spirit Cave Man: Oldest Mummy Ever Found Whose DNA Rewrote American History! ~ By Discovery Future May 4, 2025

The Spirit Cave mummy is the oldest human mummy found in North America. It was discovered in 1940 in Spirit Cave, 13 miles east of Fallon, Nevada, United States, by the husband-and-wife archaeological team of Sydney and Georgia Wheeler. Analysis of the remains showed similarities to North and South American indigenous peoples and in 2016, the remains were repatriated to the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe of Nevada

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ARTICLE: The legal battle over the 10,600-year-old “Spirit Cave Mummy” was put to bed after a groundbreaking revelation revealed that the mummy is related to a modern Native American tribe, according to a study recently published in Science. DNA testing of the mummy’s skull definitively linked it to the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe of Nevada.

The Spirit Cave Mummy’s story begins in 1940 when it was first discovered in a small rocky alcove in the Great Basin Desert in Nevada. However, it wasn’t until 50 years later that new testing would reveal its actual age and earn it the title of the world’s oldest natural mummy (one embalmed only by natural forces).

The Fallon Paiute-Shoshone tribe claimed cultural affiliation with the mummy and requested the repatriation of its remains under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. However the U.S. Bureau of Land Management rejected their request.

The tribe sued the government and sparked the two-decade-long debate over what to do with the mummy. The tribe wanted a proper burial for an individual they believed to be one of their ancestors and anthropologists believed that the remains provided invaluable historical insights and should be placed on display in a museum.

The two sides remained in a stalemate until 2015 when the tribe agreed to let Professor Eske Willerslev, the study’s lead author, conduct genomic testing on the mummy.

“I assured the tribe that my group would not do the DNA testing unless they gave permission and it was agreed that if Spirit Cave was genetically a Native American the mummy would be repatriated to the tribe,” Willerslev said in the statement.

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