Case Study: Kennewick Man

Archeology
Kennewick Man

I would like to begin with an overview of the current federal court case regarding the human remains found along the Columbia river in Washington state in the summer of 1996.
On the 28th of July 1996 the bones of an unidentified man were found along the Columbia river in Washington state by two men at an off shore powerboat race, the first pieces of the skull were discovered ten feet from the shore line and reported to the authorities. There was a subsequent search of the area that turned up a nearly complete male skeleton, initial thoughts were that the remains were from a settler possibly one to two hundred years old. Further study by Jim Chatter a forensic investigation and archeologist discovered what
looked like a spear point logged in the mans hip. The radio-carbon dating placed him at around nine thousand three hundred years old.
The skeleton showed that the man suffered several sever injuries over his forty to fifty years of life.
He had broken bones and injuries that could have easily been fatal. A broken infected elbow, crushed chest and separated ribs, and a fractured skull that all healed, he lived a brutal life but survived all of theses injuries. Other interesting traits that stood out were that his skull was caucasoid (European, west Asian, and North African.) not Native American. This raised a few questions, Jim contacted Doug Owsley an anthropologist at the Smithsonian to set up a team to study the skeleton and set up a dig site. What happened next would lead to a ten year long court debate between 8 scientist and 4 local Indian tribes hoping to get the rights to the
remains. The local tribes are relying on a government law drafted in 1990 called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or N.A.G.P.R.A. this was enacted on November 16, 1990, to address the rights of lineal descendants, Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations to Native American cultural items, including human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. The Act assigned implementation responsibilities to the Secretary of the Interior. Staff support is provided by the National NAGPRA Program. Basically this loosely states that any human remains, cultural, or funerary objects, had to be cataloged and returned to the proper Indian Tribes if they were in the inventory of state or federally funded museums or organizations this included all federal land, but does exclude privately owned land. Finds and dig sites on private land are exempt from this law, which gives some sites around the country continues dig access for archaeologist and anthropologist. The laws are convoluted and blurry, it would appear that the biggest issue with the law is it states that anything found before 1492 is considered to be from the indigenous population and is to be given back, but it does not clearly state, finds that predate current tribes in the Indian nation. Such as Kennewick Man or other Clovis sites found throughout the America's. there are questions of a possible Solutrean connection that predates the Clovis people all together. The Solutrean's were a culture that spanned France and the Iberian Peninsula around 20,000 to 14,000 years ago, they developed a distinct skill set and flintknapping (type of stone tool making) very similar to that of the Clovis people. As early as 1919 Nels Nelson suggested that there were Solutrean style technology in North America, It was not until the discovery of the Clovis site in New Mexico that gave real credibility to this theory. The real meat of this argument is that the Clovis people which Kennewick is likely apart of, had the technology of flintknapping and it was strikingly similar to that of the Solutreans that the connection between the two cultures has to be there. It is very difficult to make the argument on behalf of the Native Americans, they have a rich oral history that is at times difficult to back up through archeology or anthropology. Many tribes make the statement that they have always been here from the beginning of time and such, anything that is found, is from their ancestors, this is a deeply held religious belief, and not easily swayed by scientists looking for evidence of early American Life. Based on the data provided by the scientist and the inability to directly link local Indian populations with the Clovis people or Kennewick Man, or the lack of evidence to show that Kennewick Man is genetically linked to Native American's in anyway, proves with out any doubt that he is in fact from an older population of people that entered the continent sometime between 14,000 years and 9,000 years ago.
Given these findings it is my opinion that the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act does not apply and should not apply to such finds, unless scientific data can be provided that proves beyond doubt that the human remains are in fact genetically linked to the current known tribes of the America's. The public must be allowed to fully explore the full history of North America and all it's people, we would be doing a grave disservice to the U.S. people and the Indian nations by with holding greater scientific discoveries based solely on a loop hope in a law designed to protect grave sites predating 1492. Despite my decision I do respect the wishes of the tribes represented here today, but must disagree with your stance on Kennewick Man. You simply can not provide evidence to prove a link between your history and his
remains. In the future it would behoove all of you to work together to understand both our cultures, it will only help your tribes to have a greater understanding of who you are and where you came from. Your history goes far beyond just the oral traditions to a place deep in the past that should be preserved and handed down to future generations. Work together with science and historians rather than against each other. As scientist,archaeologist, and Anthropologist dig deeper into the cultures of America's ancient past take the time to look and study the oral traditions of local people, there is certainly value and knowledge to be had by both partied, it's unfortunate to be here today arguing over a window into the past, lets hope the window into the future is clearer with greater focus on learning and exchanging ideas and information.