The Indigenous Americans have been here a long time, but various tribes grew and shrank over the years, many of them dying out completely. While there is a lot of archeological artifacts from them living in various areas for a long time, it was still hard to piece together a comprehensive history.

There is still a long way to go, but the oldest mummy ever discovered is helping to shed some light, and even settle a legal case today. That’s right, the oldest mummy in the world isn’t in Egypt, but right here in North America.

It was first found in 1940 in Nevada. The mummy was taken out of a cave called Spirit Cave and paraded around at the Nevada State Fair that year, and then it was given to the Nevada State Museum in Carson City. The mummy was believed to be around 2000 years old, which would make it old but not nearly the oldest ever found.

In 1997, radiocarbon dating tests were done on it, which revealed that the body was actually around 10,700 years old, breaking all previous records.

While it sat at the museum, members of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe asked that it be returned to Spirit Cave, and when their request was denied, they filed a lawsuit under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The Bureau of Land Management refused to return the mummy, saying that modern Native Americans were actually unrelated to the mummy and all other ancient indigenous peoples who, at the time, were thought to be genetically distinct.

The debate between the Bureau and the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe went on for decades until the mummy’s DNA was analyzed and it proved that it was genetically related to modern Native Americans. This not only ended the legal case and forced the mummy’s return to Spirit Cave, but also changed the way we look at the history of Native Americans.

Much of this information was gathered together as a study, published in the journal American Antiquity.

The mummy, who is known as The Storyteller because of how it was able to change the narrative about the history of Native Americans, is at its original resting place, where it will hopefully remain forever.

Imagine the life this mummy lived.

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