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Kennewick Man Speaks
Seattle Times ^ | 2-7-2004

Posted on 02/07/2004 12:10:42 PM PST by blam

Kennewick Man speaks

Kennewick Man has held onto his secrets for more than 9,000 years and now, finally, scientists will get a chance to be his voice.

This week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals pushed the truths resting within the bones at the Burke Museum closer to the light with its decision that scientists can study them. The appeals court affirmed a lower-court decision that the Interior Department erred in its decision to give the bones to the Native American tribes that claim them as those of an ancestor. The government might appeal to the Supreme Court.

But the 9th Circuit's ruling explicitly concludes there is no evidence of a genetic or cultural link between Kennewick Man and the modern-day tribes. Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt ruled the remains found on federal property should be given to the tribes under the federal repatriation law because the bones predated Columbus' 1492 landing in North America. The tribes, who want to bury the remains, argued Kennewick Man was their ancestor because their oral histories contained no migration stories.

But eight prominent scientists sued for the right to study Kennewick Man and shed light on the peopling of the Americas. Limited studies concluded the remains more closely resemble modern-day people in Polynesia or the Ainu of Japan than they do Native Americans. Experts say they also resemble those of other ancient bones found elsewhere in the Americas far from the Columbia River Basin and, some believe, a set of 25,000-year-old bones in China.

The court's rejection of the pre-Columbian rule has implications for the study of other ancient remains, including those of Pan Era Woman, a set of 12,000-year-old remains found on federal property in Texas. Kennewick Man is holding the door open so other ancient remains aren't buried with their secrets.

The Native American Graves and Repatriation Act is a good law designed to return remains and artifacts to tribes with which actual connections can be established. But as science suggested and a federal judge and appeals court concluded — Kennewick Man is in a different category.

He belongs to all of us.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Washington
KEYWORDS: anthropology; archaeology; crevolist; economic; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; history; kennewick; kennewickman; man; panerawoman; speaks; texas; tomdillehay
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To: blam
The tribes, who want to bury the remains, argued Kennewick Man was their ancestor because their oral histories contained no migration stories.

That is taking PC to absurd extremes. Now we must allow primitive savages' ignorance to drive scientific inquiry?
Whether they were too ignorant to find out about migrations or not, clearly they are newcomers. It will be clearly proven that Kennewick man predates all "native" Americans by a whole bunch.

PC.... R.I.P.

81 posted on 02/07/2004 7:06:50 PM PST by Publius6961 (40% of Californians are as dumb as a sack of rocks.)
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To: Chris Talk

Kerrywick Man

82 posted on 02/07/2004 7:08:06 PM PST by blam
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To: Publius6961
"It will be clearly proven that Kennewick man predates all "native" Americans by a whole bunch."

I say, at least 3,000 years and probably much more. Arlington Springs Woman has been dated to 13,000BP. (The oldest human skeleton ever found in the Americas)

83 posted on 02/07/2004 7:14:06 PM PST by blam
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To: Pharmboy; Chris Talk; Map Kernow
The late Joseph Greenberg, IMO the greatest linguist of the 20th century, wrote two books relevant to the discussion here.

In Language in the Americas he presents evidence that all the native languages of N and S. America fit into three groups:

Eskimo-Aleut
Na-Dene (=Athabaskan, Eyak, Tlingit and Haida - all spoken in Alaska, Canada, and the Pacific NW, with the exception of Apache and Navajo), and
Amerindian - all other Indian languages, including all in Central and South America.

The three-way split seems to be reflected in genetic studies

discussion

He also wrote Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family vol I grammar, vol II lexicon.

In it, he proposes that IndoEuropean, Uralic-Yukaghir (includes Finnnish and Hungarian), Altaic (=Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic) Korean-Japanese-Ainu, Gilyak (spoken N. of Japan on Sakhalin Island), Chukchi-Kamchatkan (Asian side of Bering Strait) and Eskimo-Aleut form a genetic language family.

Needless to say, both of these proposals are very controversial.

Greenberg was of the opinion that Amerindian was most closely related to Eurasiatic.

Other linguists, including the Russian Nostraticists, have come to the conclusion that Na-Dene, Sino-Tibetan, North Caucasian, Yeniesian, Burushaski, and Basque are also a genetic family, considerably older than Eurasiatic.

Google searches on these words will turn up a lot of hits.

84 posted on 02/07/2004 7:28:51 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: Chris Talk
I might guess their original language [Ainu] might be extinct now, wouldn't they speak Japanese now?

Yes it is

85 posted on 02/07/2004 7:30:18 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: claptrap
Ooooooooo... Kay...
Great science.
Carbon dating is a fraud. Sure.

You better get back on your medication sonny.

86 posted on 02/07/2004 7:50:23 PM PST by Publius6961 (40% of Californians are as dumb as a sack of rocks.)
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To: curmudgeonII
I can't say I'm too enthused about any court, especially this one, determining what is scientifically correct.

Sure beats having a bureaucrat do it on a whim (Babbit), or the Indians based on their ignorance and PC and nothing else.

87 posted on 02/07/2004 8:08:04 PM PST by Publius6961 (40% of Californians are as dumb as a sack of rocks.)
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To: Right Wing Professor
It is just an eye test. Please look at this light for a few seconds please. Poof! Thank you.
88 posted on 02/07/2004 8:22:26 PM PST by DeepDish (This space for rent.)
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To: Chris Talk
Anyone who believes/assumes Man is the highest of the beings is a secular humanist.

While I can't say to know that he does not believe this, I don't recall that he ever stated that he does believe this. Where did you get this idea?
89 posted on 02/07/2004 8:56:45 PM PST by Dimensio (The only thing you feel when you take a human life is recoil. -- Frank "Earl" Jones)
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To: Dimensio
I don't presume to say that FReeper X or Y or Z is or is NOT a secular humanist, though I think someone on here pleaded guilty to being one today.

I was merely attempting to give a concise definition of the term itself. By definition, whatever you think is the highest being is one's standard of value or "god."

Humanism would be proven wrong if, for example, there were UFO aliens who are higher than ourselves. They would then become our "gods" in a von-Daniken sense, unless perhaps we were to learn that they in turn were but agents, angels, servants, messengers of some yet higher being(s).

Unless the definition can be established, the term is just a buzzword that prevents thinking. That is what I was trying to avoid, and it was not I who brought up the term into the discussion.

90 posted on 02/07/2004 9:03:23 PM PST by Chris Talk (What Earth now is, Mars once was. What Mars now is, Earth will one day be.)
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To: claptrap
Carbon dating is a fraud

Others Disagree with your claims of fraud. Perhaps you can show peer-reviewed experimental evidence that refutes the principles of dating. A list of these other akeletal remains would be useful.

91 posted on 02/07/2004 9:12:22 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Chris Talk
"More forbidden thought: why did sabertooth tigers and mammoths and all those wonderful Ice Age Fauna keep on living in Florida right up until the time of Christ, when they had died out everywhere else in the world? You would have thought that, being cold adapted, they would have died out in Fla. FIRST."


92 posted on 02/07/2004 9:30:03 PM PST by blam
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To: PatrickHenry
Thanks for the ping!
93 posted on 02/07/2004 9:46:27 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Chris Talk
"Humanist", like "liberal", is a once noble word which has been hijacked by the left, so you can understand why I am apprehensive about using it to describe myself. The people who call themselves "humanists" nowadays tend to be old-school left-wing liberals, and I have little sympathy for their simplistic approach to complex economic and social issues.
94 posted on 02/07/2004 11:16:29 PM PST by RightWingAtheist
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To: claptrap
How do these dates of 12000 years and 9000 years get arrived at? Carbon dating is a fraud as is alot of purported "scientific facts".

Well, you certain chose the right screen name...

Wherever you got this nonsense, I strongly suggest that you not trust them to be a reliable source on whatever else they try to tell you, because on this issue they were either lying, or incredibly ignorant, or both.

95 posted on 02/08/2004 2:04:34 AM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Virginia-American
Good things come in threes. :)
96 posted on 02/08/2004 5:57:26 AM PST by Map Kernow ("I hold that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing" ---Thomas Jefferson)
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To: adam_az
"I can't say I'm too enthused about any court, especially this one, determining what is scientifically correct."

Really! Does that mean you don't agree with scientific forensic evidence being used in trials, either?

As an example of what you can get into when the courts, and politicians get into scientific matters, I need only remind you of the situation with the Indiana legislature in the 1920's.

One of the legislators had a daughter who was having a problem grasping the mathematical concept of pi [you know 3.14.......etc.]. He introduced, and passed through the [unfortunately largely Republican] state legislature, a bill establishing the value of pi as 4.

97 posted on 02/08/2004 10:57:05 AM PST by curmudgeonII (The yo-yo didn't even choose the nearest whole number.)
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To: curmudgeonII
"One of the legislators had a daughter who was having a problem grasping the mathematical concept of pi [you know 3.14.......etc.]. He introduced, and passed through the [unfortunately largely Republican] state legislature, a bill establishing the value of pi as 4."

Yes, but the actual value of PI didn't change as a result of the law.
98 posted on 02/08/2004 2:38:35 PM PST by adam_az (Be vewy vewy qwiet, I'm hunting weftists.)
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To: blam
bump
99 posted on 02/08/2004 2:39:53 PM PST by VOA
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To: Ichneumon
I strongly suggest that you not trust them to be a reliable source...

I hazard that this person cares not about his source, or accuracy.

100 posted on 02/09/2004 6:47:35 AM PST by Shryke
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