[muawiyah]

With the present stock of Indians descended primarily from folks who came but 6,000 or so years ago, the skeleton of a fellow who was here 9,000 years ago should be of no cultural interest to them.

That's what the judge said, more or less.

Still, 9,000 years ago you still had European type people in many parts of Asia, as, of course, you do today.

[Verginius Rufus]

You are arguing on the basis of scientific evidence. The Indian tribes in question don't care about science. They have oral traditions that their tribes have always been where they are now. It's basically a kind of religious belief on their part, so it's a question of science vs. religion, like in the Scopes trial. The same sort of people who ridicule fundamentalists for rejecting scientific theory because of the Bible have no problem with Indians' religious beliefs overruling science.