Posted on 06/18/2015 11:51:48 AM PDT by Theoria
In July 1996, two college students were wading in the shallows of the Columbia River near the town of Kennewick, Wash., when they stumbled across a human skull.
At first the police treated the case as a possible murder. But once a nearly complete skeleton emerged from the riverbed and was examined, it became clear that the bones were extremely old — 8,500 years old, it would later turn out.
The skeleton, which came to be known as Kennewick Man or the Ancient One, is one of the oldest and perhaps the most important — and controversial — ever found in North America. Native American tribes claimed that the bones were the remains of an ancestor and moved to reclaim them in order to provide a ritual burial.
But a group of scientists filed a lawsuit to stop them, arguing that Kennewick Man could not be linked to living Native Americans. Adding to the controversy was the claim from some scientists that Kennewick Man’s skull had unusual “Caucasoid” features. Speculation flew that Kennewick Man was European.
A California pagan group went so far as to file a lawsuit seeking to bury the skeleton in a pre-Christian Norse ceremony.
On Thursday, Danish scientists published an analysis of DNA obtained from the skeleton. Kennewick Man’s genome clearly does not belong to a European, the scientists said.
“It’s very clear that Kennewick Man is most closely related to contemporary Native Americans,” said Eske Willerslev, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Nature. “In my view, it’s bone-solid.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Kenny, ping!
Did he identify as black?
Closest relation...Elizabeth Warren
This stuff is cool. The genealogy world is getting into this DNA arena.
I’m a bit skeptical about the quality of the comparison data.
Thanks Theoria. These genetic articles make my DNA go all twisty!
People will be astonished, I predict, when DNA research uncovers the frequency of ‘fence-jumping’.
La Brea Woman was thought to have been thrown into Los Angeles’ tar pits some 9000 years ago. Evidence indicates she had a dental abscess and may have been freaking out her contemporaries.
She probably wasn’t the first crazy lady thrown into a tar pit or sacrificed into a volcano.
“New DNA Results Show Kennewick Man Was Native American”
As opposed to...? Why would this be a surprise?
I prefer the more accurate term ‘First Immigrant’, in any case.
I wouldn’t say ‘first’ immigrant, but simply one of the oldest that we have found and tested.
I'm a bit skeptical about the Kennewick Man DNA.
8,500 years old.
Found buried just below the bottom of a river.
How long was it exposed to or saturated by flowing fresh water?
Decades? Centuries?
Hard to believe that would not seriously degrade the DNA in the skeleton.
But did the DNA test prove he was the father.....
Open source article here - The ancestry and affiliations of Kennewick Man
BTW for those who don't remember, the reason he was thought to be Caucasion was because the forensics expert who first looked at him had no expertise with ancient skeletons. He quickly realized his error and recanted the original idea.
For the next one, I nominate Nancy Pelosi.
Tune in to the next Maury to find out!
Dolezal says we’re all black because we all came from Africa.
I mention it too to compare and contrast roughly similar time frames.
I’m just glad Kennewick Man wasn’t transgendered.
Under the Rachel Dolezal principle, can’t we just ignore the DNA, claim him as European anyway, and then set up a string of sovereign and tax free reservations and casinos for our tribe?
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