Kennewick Man

Kennewick Man or Ancient One was a Native American man who lived during the early Holocene whose skeletal remains were found in 1996 washed out on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. Radiocarbon tests show the man lived about 8,400 to 8,690 years Before Present, making his skeleton one of the most complete ever found this old in the Americas, Nevertheless, some members of the scientific community believed it was essential to conduct research on the skeleton, and asserted he was only distantly related to today's Native Americans and was more closely related to Polynesian or Southeast Asian peoples, which would exempt the case from NAGPRA.

The controversial case wound its way through courts for many years, including a period when scientists won access to study the remains. At the same time, technology for analyzing ancient DNA had been steadily improving. In 2015, scientists at the University of Copenhagen published a study which found that in comparison to contemporary human populations, Kennewick Man's genome is closest to that of modern Native Americans, though he is not associated with any specific modern tribe. That finding gave decisive weight to the NAGPRA argument: in 2016, the US House and Senate passed legislation to return the remains to a coalition of Columbia basin tribes. Kennewick Man was buried according to tribal traditions on February 18, 2017, with 200 members of five Columbia basin tribes in attendance, at an undisclosed location in the area. Within the scientific community since the 1990s, arguments for a non-Indian ancient history of the Americas, including by ancient peoples from Europe, have been losing ground in the face of ancient DNA analysis.

Scientists attempted DNA analysis within a few years of discovery, but reported "available technology and protocols do not allow the analysis of ancient DNA from these remains" ie. multiple experts were unable to extract enough DNA for analysis.

Chatters et al. (2000) conducted a graphic comparison, including size, of Kennewick Man to eighteen modern populations. They found Kennewick Man to be most closely related to the Ainu, a recognized indigenous people of Northern Japan. However, when size was excluded as a factor, no association to any population was established. In 2001, Chatters wrote that the "craniofacial characteristics of Paleo-Americans, Asians, and early Europeans, loosely resemble the Ainu, Polynesian, and Australian peoples", but that no group was the major contributor to the Paleo-American gene pool. Anthropologist C. Loring Brace maintained in a 2006 interview that, by his analysis, Kennewick Man was "likely related" to the Ainu of Japan.

Anthropologist Joseph Powell of the University of New Mexico was also allowed to examine the remains. Powell used craniometric data obtained by anthropologist William White Howells of Harvard University and anthropologist Tsunehiko Hanihara of Saga University; this had the advantage of including data drawn from Asian and North American populations. Powell said that Kennewick Man was not European but most resembled the Ainu and Polynesians. Powell said that the Ainu descend from the Jōmon people, an East Asian population with "closest biological affinity with south-east Asians rather than western Eurasian peoples". Powell said that dental analysis showed the skull to have a 94-percent consistency with being of a Sundadont group like the Ainu and Polynesians and only a 48-percent consistency with being of a Sinodont group like that of North Asia. Powell said analysis of the skull showed it to be "unlike American Indians and Europeans". Powell concluded that the remains were "clearly not a Caucasoid unless Ainu and Polynesians are considered Caucasoid".

Burial

Kennewick Man had been buried deliberately. By examining the calcium carbonate left behind as underground water collected on the underside of the bones and then evaporated, scientists were able to conclude that Kennewick Man was lying on his back with his feet rolled slightly outward and his arms at his side, with the palms facing down, a position that could not have been accidental.

Scientific initiatives and significance

Scientific initiatives

There have been three major scientific initiatives to study and report on Kennewick Man.

Between 1998 and 2000, the Department of the Interior and National Park Service, in cooperation with the Corps of Engineers, the federal agency responsible for the Kennewick remains, conducted a series of scientific examinations of the remains. Eighteen nationally and internationally recognized scientists and scholars conducted a variety of historical and scientific examinations, analyses, tests, and studies. Nevertheless, the "analysis was quickly suspended by the U.S. government" because of the controversy over custodianship of the remains.

After the suspension of the government studies, anthropologists sued the government, and in 2002 won the right to study the bones. For the next six years beginning in 2005, Douglas Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution coordinated more than a dozen experts, who analyzed the bones in numerous ways including forensic anthropology, physical anthropology, and isotope chemistry. Their report was published in 2014, in the book titled Kennewick Man, The Scientific Investigation of an Ancient American Skeleton.

In 2015, a paper in Nature titled "The Ancestry and Affiliations of Kennewick Man" analyzed ancient DNA from Kennewick Man, and determined he is associated with modern day Indians.

The discovery of Kennewick Man, along with other ancient skeletons, has furthered scientific debate over the origin and history of early Native American people. One hypothesis holds that a single source of migration occurred, consisting of hunters and gatherers following large herds of game who wandered across the Bering land bridge. An alternative hypothesis is that more than one source population was involved in migration immediately following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), which occurred ~22k to ~18k years BP, and that the land migration through Beringia was either preceded by or roughly synchronous with a waterborne migration from coastal Asia.

The similarity of some ancient skeletal remains in the Americas, such as Kennewick Man, to coastal Asian phenotypes is suggestive of more than one migration source. or coastal Asian source populations.

Regardless of the debate over whether there were more than one source of migration following the LGM, Kennewick Man has yielded insight into the marine lifestyle and mobility of early coastal migrants.

Owsley study criticisms

In 2012, Burke Museum archeologists voiced concern and criticism of the Owsley team's preliminary findings (not published fully until 2014). First, it was noted that no one outside of Owsley's team had an opportunity to examine the Smithsonian's data to see how the team reached its conclusions. Second, the absence of peer-reviewed articles published prior to Owsley unveiling the bones' "secrets" was criticized. Third, Owsley's non-Native argument hinged on the assumption that Kennewick Man's skull was a reliable means of assessing ancestry. This was a "nineteenth-century skull science paradigm", said David Hurst Thomas, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. Skulls are no longer used as the basis for classifying remains, as DNA evidence is more reliable.

Racial issues

In 2005, author Jack Hitt wrote an essay "Mighty White of You: Racial Preferences Color America's Oldest Skulls and Bones", in which he describes a systemic "racial preference" for Kennewick Man, and other old skeletons, to be of European origin. If this theory held true (and DNA evidence shows it does not), it would turn the tables on Indian claims of being the first inhabitants, white Europeans would be the victims of Indian invaders, and politically modern Indians would have less claim to sovereignty.

The use of the word "Caucasoid" to describe Kennewick Man, and his facial reconstruction that appeared plausibly European, were taken by many to mean that Kennewick Man was "Caucasian", European, or "white", rather than an ancestor of present-day Native Americans, although the term "Caucasoid" had also been applied to the Ainu of northern Japan. In 1998, The New York Times reported "White supremacist groups are among those who used Kennewick Man to claim that Caucasians came to America well before Native Americans."

Custody of Kennewick Man

In October 1998, the remains were deposited at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington. The Burke Museum was the court-appointed neutral repository for the remains, and did not exhibit them. They were then still legally the property of the US Army Corps of Engineers, as they were found on land under its custody.

According to NAGPRA, if human remains are found on federal lands and their cultural affiliation to a Native American tribe can be established, the affiliated tribe may claim them. Two months after discovery in 1996, the Umatilla tribe requested custody of the remains so they could be reburied according to tribal tradition. It was contested by researchers who believed Kennewick Man was not affiliated with modern Indians. The Umatilla argued that their oral history goes back 10,000 years, and they had been present on the territory since the dawn of time. Native American tribes asserted that the claims that Kennewick Man was of non-Indian origin was an attempt to evade the law governing custodianship of ancient bones. The Corps of Engineers and the Clinton administration supported the Native American claim in what became a long-running lawsuit.

Robson Bonnichsen and seven other anthropologists sued the United States for the right to conduct research. The anthropologists won the case in 2002, and on February 4, 2004, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit panel rejected an appeal brought by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the Umatilla, Colville, Yakama, Nez Perce, and other tribes on the grounds that they were unable to show sufficient evidence of kinship. Furthermore, the presiding judge found that the US government had acted in bad faith and awarded attorney's fees of $2,379,000 to the plaintiffs.

On April 7, 2005, during the 109th Congress, United States senator John McCain introduced an amendment to NAGPRA, which (section 108) would have changed the definition of "Native American" from being that which "is indigenous to the United States" to "is or was indigenous to the United States". However, the 109th Congress concluded without enacting the bill. By the bill's definition, Kennewick Man would have been classified as Native American regardless of whether any link to a contemporary tribe could be found.

Burial locations

About a year after the discovery on the banks of the Columbia River, Kennewick Man's original burial site was "preserved for future scientific study" by the Corps of Engineers when they dropped 2,000 tons of rocks and dirt onto the site by helicopter, then planted thick stands of trees and bamboo on top. Questions were raised by 60 Minutes and Chatters about the heavy damage to the site and motivation of the Corps for making it so inaccessible. The precise coordinates have been removed from official records, although contemporary news videos and reports give an approximate sense of where it was.

In September 2016, in light of new DNA evidence associating Kennewick Man with modern day Native Americans, the 114th US House and Senate passed legislation to return the ancient bones to a coalition of Columbia Basin tribes. The coalition included the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Nez Perce Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, and the Wanapum Band of Priest Rapids.

The remains of Kennewick Man were cataloged and removed from the Burke Museum on February 17, 2017. The following day, more than 200 members of five Columbia Plateau tribes were present at a burial of the remains, according to their traditions, at an undisclosed location.

References

Sources

. Reprinted from Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

Bibliography

"Mystery of the First Americans" transcript of NOVA program. Air date February 15, 2000.
"Skeleton from Kennewick, Washington." American Antiquity, 65, no. 2. (Apr. 2000), pp. 291–316. May 11, 2007.

External links

Kennewick Man, at Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
Forensic observations, by James C. Chatters, 2004.
"Scientists: Mysterious Kennewick Man looked Polynesian and came from far away". By Joel Achenbach. Washington Post, August 25, 2014
Kennewick Man Case • from Friends of America's Past – events, press releases, court documents.
Kennewick Man, National Park Service, US, 2004 (all text and images from this site are in the public domain).
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"NMNH Scientist Studies Kennewick Man" – The scientific team assembled to study the Kennewick Man skeletal finished the second phase of research. Douglas W. Owsley, Smithsonian anthropologist, presented findings in 2006 in Seattle. Smithsonian Institution Web site.
NOVA Study Guide 2000. Four segments:
"Does Race Exist?" Anthropologists George Gill of the University of Wyoming and Loring Brace of the University of Michigan debated.
"Meet Kennewick Man (QTVR)." Archeologist Chatters spoke of working with the remains.
"Claims for the Remains": Robson Bonnichsen; Loring Brace; George Gill, Vance Haynes, Richard Jantz, Douglas Owsley, Dennis Stanford, Gentry Steele spoke about suit against the U.S. government.
"The Dating Game (Hot Science)." Application of carbon-14 analysis.