[blam]

Spirit Cave Man is 9,400 years old, 100 years older than Kennewick Man. He is the oldest mummy ever found in the Americas. He was found fully clothed in a cave.

Spirit Cave Man

Spirit Cave Man eked out a life among the oases of an unforgiving desert. He fished in Great Basin lakes, hunted small mammals and wore clothing woven from strips of pelts and marsh plants.

The hunter survived to his mid-40s. But he had broken his right hand and suffered chronic back pain from arthritis, herniated disks and a fracture in his spine. A blow to the left temple dented and cracked his skull, which had just begun to heal when he died, perhaps from that injury or the advanced abscesses in his upper and lower jaws.

He was buried lying on his right side, arm flexed so his hand rested beneath the chin, in a shallow grave dug in a desert cave. The cave's climate preserved patches of skin and reddish-brown shoulder-length hair on the skull, making him North America's oldest mummy. Dried intestines contained fish bones from a final meal.

Also preserved were his rabbit fur robe, two shrouds of woven tule reeds, and well-worn moccasins of three kinds of animal hide, sewn with hemp and sinew, and patched on the soles. Copyright © 1999 Discovery Communications Inc.

[Designer]

"The hunter survived to his mid-40s. But he had broken his right hand and suffered chronic back pain from arthritis, herniated disks and a fracture in his spine. A blow to the left temple dented and cracked his skull, which had just begun to heal when he died, perhaps from that injury or the advanced abscesses in his upper and lower jaws."

Spirit Cave Man pooka!

[ZULU]

This guy looks more like a traditional Native American.

Sorry he had such a painful life.

[brazzaville]

Good morning.

How tall was Spirit Cave Man? The shrouds made from tule reeds brings to mind the big redheads the rest of the locals are reputed to have annihilated around Tule Lake.

The Modoc have legends about giant, redheaded peoples that were in the area before the Modoc ancestors and an alliance of other tribes killed them. It's fascinating stuff.

Michael Frazier

[brytlea]

I always think of native americans has having uniformly black hair, did some have other colors?
susie

[Spunky]

"The cave's climate preserved patches of skin and reddish-brown shoulder-length hair on the skull, making him North America's oldest mummy. Dried intestines contained fish bones from a final meal."

Were they able to get any good DNA testing donw on Spirit Cave Man? I would think with all that was there they could.

[Spunky]

Spirit Cave Man

Kennewick Man

They look related.

[nopardons]

bttt