Hi Silk here.. Thought you might find this of
interest....

Born: 7200 B.C.
Birthplace: ?
Died: 7,200 B.C. or so (bad luck)
Best Known As: Controversial remains of an ancient
human.......
In 1996 two young men found a human skull in the
Columbia River, near Kennewick, Washington. The skull
was determined to be over 9,000 years old; nearly all
of the skeletal remains were then found and
reconstructed. Native American tribes, claiming the
bones were those of an ancestor, wanted the bones
reburied. Scientists, claiming the bones were a great
archeological find, wanted to study them more, raising
sensitive political issues that remain unsettled.

The reconstructed face of the Kennewick Man.Kennewick
Man is the name for the remains of a prehistoric man
found on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick,
Washington, on July 28, 1996. The discovery of
Kennewick Man was accidental: a pair of spectators at
the yearly hydroplane races found his skull while
watching the races.

The remains became embroiled in debates about the
relationship between Native American religious rights
and archaeology. Based on the Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act, five Native American
groups (the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Yakama, Wannapum, and
Colville) claimed the remains as theirs, to be buried
by traditional means. Only Umatillas continued further
court proceeding. In February 2004 the United States
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a
cultural link between the tribes and the skeleton was
not met, opening the door for more scientific study.

In July 2005, scientists from around the United States
convened in Seattle for ten days to study the remains,
making many detailed measurements, and determined the
cause of death.


Scientific significance:

The remains of the Kennewick Man.The remains were
initially given to forensic anthropologists (one of
whom was James C. Chatters, a forensic anthropologist
for the Benton County Sheriff's Department) who
studied them until it was determined that they were of
a man who lived between 5,000 and 9,500 years ago. He
was in his 30s or 40s, had a healed broken arm and a
healed broken rib, and a 2.2-inch spear point was
lodged in his hip (which did not kill him but probably
was the source of recurring infection that could have
ultimately killed him). Prior to detailed scientific
analysis, a digital reconstruction of the skull
revealed what some called Caucasoid features, although
at least one of the early studies concluded the skull
most resembled that of the present-day people of New
Guinea. Press coverage frequently noted a similarity
in appearance to actor Patrick Stewart.[2]

Later research suggests he most closely resembles
South-East Asian, Polynesian or Ainu peoples. If
confirmed, this would lend support to the theory that
an important migration route lay along the North
Pacific shoreline from Asia to America during a time
when inland routes were blocked by ice. DNA analysis,
which some Native American groups oppose, could help
resolve this mystery, should there be enough remaining
intact to extract from the bones.

All Paleo-Indian remains tested to date have been
found to possess the same mitochondrial haplogroups as
do modern Native Americans[citation needed].
Craniometric analyses have been contradictory, with
some studies linking Paleo-Indians to modern Native
Americans, some to European or Southeast Asian
populations, and some finding no close affinity to any
modern peoples.

Kennewick Man features prominently in debate raging
currently over the history of the peopling of the
Americas. Some scientists continue to defend the
traditional Bering Strait land-bridge model of a
single land migration from Siberia toward the end of
the last ice age, while many scientists have come to
believe that multiple waves of migration from Asia and
possibly Europe occurred.


Ownership controversy
According to the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) signed into law by President
George H. W. Bush in 1990, if human remains are found
on federal lands and their cultural affiliation to an
Indian tribe can be established, the affiliated tribe
can claim them. The Umatilla tribe of Native Americans
requested custody of the remains, wanting to bury them
according to tribal tradition. However, their claim
was contested by researchers hoping to study the
remains; if Kennewick Man has no direct connection to
modern-day native tribes, then NAGPRA should not
apply.

The Umatilla have argued that their origin beliefs say
that their people have been present on their
historical territory since the dawn of time, so a
government holding that Kennewick Man is not Native
American is tantamount to the government's rejection
of their beliefs.

After initially ruling in their favor, on February 4,
2004, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel
rejected the appeal of the Umatilla, Colville, Yakama,
Nez Perce and other tribes on the grounds that they
were unable to show any evidence of kinship. The
tribes dropped their lawsuits for custody.

In April 2005, United States Senator John McCain
introduced an amendment to NAGPRA (Senate Bill 536)
which, in section 108, would change the definition of
"Native American" from being that which "is indigenous
to the United States" to "is or was indigenous to the
United States." By that definition, Kennewick Man
would be Native American, whether or not any link to a
contemporary tribe could be found. Proponents of this
argue that is in accord with current scientific
understanding, which is that it is not in all cases
possible for prehistoric remains to be traced to
current tribal entities, not least because of the
social upheaval, forced resettlement and extinction of
entire ethnicities caused by disease and warfare in
the wake of European colonization. Doing so, however,
would still not remove the controversy surrounding
Kennewick Man as then it would have to be decided
which Native American group should take possession of
the remains if he could not be definitively linked
with a current group. To be of practical use in a
historical and prehistorical context, some argue
further that the term "Native American" should be
applied so that it spans the entire range from the
Clovis culture (which cannot be positively assigned to
any contemporary tribal group) to the Métis, who only
came into being as a consequence of European contact,
yet constitute a distinct cultural entity.

The remains are now at the Burke Museum at the
University of Washington, where they were deposited in
October 1998, but they are legally the property of the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, since they were found on
land belonging to the Corps.






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