There are many such examples. History does not exist in isolation. It is constantly refined and reflects on the present just as much as the present reflects on it. That's one of the many reasons why AskHistorians (and a lot of serious historians) try to follow the 20-year rule; that is, seriously consider topics only 20 years or more removed from the present. That way, events can be considered in a somewhat detached way.
Some historians hold to even stricter standards: 40, 50, or in a few cases, 100 years. I'm also reminded of a line mistranslated from Zhou Enlai. When asked what he thought of the impact of the French Revolution, Enlai famously responded that it was "too early to say." (Enlai was actually talking about the events of 1968, not 1789, but that has not stopped people from misinterpreting his line.)
In any event, let me give you an example from American history by talking about the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, better known as NAGPRA.
From the time of European contact with the Americas until the 20th century, Euro-Americans strove to understand the place of American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians in culture and society. They performed ethnographic and cultural studies, anthropological research and offered racial and sociological theories. Some of these attempts were well-intentioned. Many were not. In almost all cases, they were done poorly.
Researchers, even well-intentioned ones, frequently took artifacts and remains from Native graves without the permission or even the knowledge of families, clans and tribes. These remains often ended up in distant museums and other institutions, where they were treated as curiosities, collectibles or scientific specimens with little thought to the fact that these remains were once human or may have had surviving descendents.
In 1990, the U.S. Congress passed NAGPRA, which demands that federally funded projects survey their sites for cultural artifacts and remains before construction can begin. Second, and more importantly, NAGPRA requires that museums and institutions receiving federal funding return cultural items and human remains to lineal descendants (including tribes, if individuals can't be identified).
This is a big deal for tribes, who get the remains of their ancestors back for reburial, and they have access to cultural artifacts (I'm thinking of tribal or clan regalia) that may have been locked away in an archive or other institution.
There is, of course, a flip side to this, and I'll point to a specific example. The 8,500-year-old skeleton of The Ancient One, better known as Kennewick Man, was discovered in July 1996 near the shore of the Columbia River. Anthropologists took the remains, dated them, and performed genetic sequencing. Tribes demanded the return of Kennewick Man's remains, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to return the remains.
Archaeologists and anthropologists sued to stop the return, arguing that Kennewick Man was too old to be tied to the tribes. The case went through federal district court and on to the court of appeals, which ruled in Bonnichsen v. United States that a "significant relationship between the remains and an existing tribe is required before NAGPRA applies."
That ruling was handed down in 2004, and an extensive study of Kennewick Man, the most complete pre-Columbian human remains found in the United States, was released in 2014. One year later, the results of a complete genome analysis found that Kennewick Man was indeed closely related to the tribes that had been seeking his return and reburial. With that information in hand, the Corps of Engineers agreed to return the remains of The Ancient One to the Earth.
There is no doubt much more to be learned from The Ancient One and other ancient remains in the United States, but there is more than just the scientific side to life. There is also the religious, cultural, and indeed human right of a descendant to decide what happens to the remains of his or her ancestor. The push-pull between these sides will continue for as far as I can see.