No burial for 10,000-year-old bones: U of California denies request for repatriation of remains

Nature 455, 1156-1157 ^ | Wednesday, October 29, 2008 | Rex Dalton

[SunkenCiv]

In the latest twist in the tug-of-war between Native Americans and anthropologists, officials at the University of California have decided not to repatriate a pair of well-preserved skeletons that are nearly 10,000 years old.

Archaeology students unearthed the bones in 1976 near the clifftop home of the chancellor of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). It may be possible to extract some of the oldest human DNA in North America from the exquisitely preserved remains, say researchers. But in the past two years the bones have become a political football over US$7-million plans to demolish and rebuild the house.

A group of 13 local bands, known as the Kumeyaay tribes, argued that the site was a sacred burial site, and that the bones found there should be repatriated to them. In March this year, UCSD dropped plans to knock down the house, opting instead for a renovation. But last week, University of California officials notified federal authorities that the bones could not be proved to be culturally affiliated with the Kumeyaay and thus would not be returned.

[blam]

There are no Native American/American Indian skeletons in the Americas that are older than 6,000 years old. Before that, the people were someone else. Professor Stephen Oppenheimer said that there are no Mongoloid skeletons older than 10k years old anywhere in the world.

Vintage Skulls

"The oldest human remains found in the Americas were recently "discovered" in the storeroom of Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology.

"Found in central Mexico in 1959, the five skulls were radiocarbon dated by a team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Mexico and found to be 13,000 years old. They pre-date the Clovis culture by a couple thousand years, adding to the growing evidence against the Clovis-first model for the first peopling of the Americas."

"Of additional significance is the shape of the skulls, which are described as long and narrow, very unlike those of modern Native Americans.

[blam]

Bye, Bye Beringia (8,000 Year Old Site In Florida)

*Skeletal remains of 169 people, split almost evenly between males and females, ranging from 6 to 70 years old. About 75 of the skeletons were relatively intact.

*90 intact human brains that include the oldest DNA samples in the World.
*Artifacts of wood, bone, and seed that were made into jewelry and tools, providing insight into the ancient peoples' lives.
*Tests showed the oldest skeletons were buried 8,100 years ago. The youngest was placed in the ground 6,900 years ago.
"To put this into context," Doran said, "these people had already been dead for 3,000 or 4,000 years before the first stones were laid for the Egyptian pyramids!"

[Varda]

It’s NAGPRA that requires an ancestral connection or cultural affiliation for remains to be claimed by tribes. It’s judges who have bought into tribal creation stories who have turned over remains despite NAGPRA. AFAIK, NAGPRA has not yet been amended. I think it’s fair that testing is stopped until a cultural affiliation is determined.

[marsh2]

The existence of “native” peoples who predate and are unconnected through DNA with current tribes, would confound tribal claims to natural resource use rights dating to “time immemorial.”

[blam]

What happened to the Clovis people?

Comet Theory Collides With Clovis Research, May Explain Disappearance of Ancient People

[coconutt2000]

A group of 13 local bands, known as the Kumeyaay tribes, argued that the site was a sacred burial site,

My opinion on this is if a tribe forgets where they buried their dead, then they don't have a right to the remains when someone else finds them. How sacred is a burial ground when they can't even keep track of where it is?