Posted on 06/30/2005 4:50:47 PM PDT by blam
Scientists to begin study of ancient skeleton over Indian protest
By William McCall
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:05 p.m. June 28, 2005
PORTLAND, Ore. – After nearly a decade of court battles, scientists plan to begin studying the 9,300-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man next week. A team of scientists plans to examine the bones at the University of Washington's Burke Museum in Seattle beginning July 6, according to their attorney, Alan Schneider.
Four Northwest Indian tribes had opposed the study, claiming the skeleton could be an ancestor who should be buried. The Interior Department and the Army Corps of Engineers had sided with the tribes.
But a federal judge in Portland, backed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled that the researchers could study the bones to determine how the man died and to find clues to prehistoric life in North America.
"What they're getting is absolutely essential baseline information that has never been obtained for this skeleton," Schneider said Tuesday.
The bones quickly attracted attention from scientists after they were found in 1996 on a Columbia River bank near Kennewick, Wash.
The skeleton is one of the oldest and most complete skeletons ever found on the continent. The long, narrow shape of the skull shows characteristics unlike modern American Indians, raising questions that researchers hope to answer with extensive study.
"Understanding human variation is really critical," said Cleone Hawkinson, Portland anthropologist who founded Friends of America's Past to support scientific access to the ancient remains. "We can't close off an entire chapter in history."
She noted the eight anthropologists who filed the original lawsuit seeking access had to pay for their legal costs and the research, or seek funding for it. No government money was involved.
"It's all coming out of the scientists' pockets," Hawkinson said.
The researchers plan to do what is called a "taphonomic" examination of the skeleton, taking measurements and making observations about the processes that affect animal and plant remains as they become fossilized. Further study is planned based on the initial findings, Schneider said.
"Taphonomy is really a forensic examination," Schneider said. "You try to determine everything that has affected the skeleton from day of death until you study it."
A coalition of four tribes – the Umatilla, Yakama, Colville and Nez Perce – claimed the bones were covered by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and belonged to the tribes.
U.S. District Judge John Jelderks and the appeals court, however, ruled the tribes could prove no direct link to the bones and the act did not apply.
The tribes have appealed the most recent 9th Circuit ruling, but attorneys involved in the case and Jelderks' office said a decision still is pending. Calls to tribal officials were not immediately returned.
Legislation remains under consideration in Congress that would allow federally recognized tribes to claim ancient remains even if they cannot prove a link to a current tribe.
Read the link in post #41. This is what it's about.
Not Caucasian, he's believed to be Ainu. There are 10-50,000 Ainu still alive on a northern island in Japan.
Read this article:
THE SAMURAI AND THE AINU
Findings by American anthropologist C. Loring Brace, University of Michigan, will surely be controversial in race conscious Japan. The eye of the predicted storm will be the Ainu, a "racially different" group of some 18,000 people now living on the northern island of Hokkaido. Pure-blooded Ainu are easy to spot: they have lighter skin, more body hair, and higher-bridged noses than most Japanese. Most Japanese tend to look down on the Ainu.
Brace has studied the skeletons of about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other Asian ethnic groups and has concluded that the revered samurai of Japan are actually descendants of the Ainu, not of the Yayoi from whom most modern Japanese are descended. In fact, Brace threw more fuel on the fire with:
"Dr. Brace said this interpretation also explains why the facial features of the Japanese ruling class are so often unlike those of typical modern Japanese. The Ainu-related samurai achieved such power and prestige in medieval Japan that they intermarried with royality and nobility, passing on Jomon-Ainu blood in the upper classes, while other Japanese were primarily descended from the Yoyoi." The reactions of Japanese scientists have been muted so. One Japanese anthropologist did say to Brace," I hope you are wrong."
The Ainu and their origin have always been rather mysterious, with some people claiming that the Ainu are really Caucasian or proto-Caucasian - in other words, "white." At present, Brace's study denies this interpretation.
So far we've just taken what washes out in the rain. If we don't take things, the deer will trample them -- in fact, most of what we've found is broke arrowheads. These are probably just hunting camps. Piles of rocks, etc.
BUT, there is no way anyone is going to find these sites until landowners have some sort of protection against the government.
There is also a nice revolutionary war site nearby, and same thing, no one will ever know about it.
BUT, there is no way anyone is going to find these sites until landowners have some sort of protection against the government.
There is also a nice revolutionary war site nearby, and same thing, no one will ever know about it.
I understand. We have the same thing in this area. The real problem is major digging (and looting). A lot of the old families in this area have sites they are protecting. They're afraid of the guvmin'. Some remember when the US Forest Service took some of their land. That was sometime before 1920.
Just protect what is there the best you can. It may answer some pretty important questions someday.
GGG PINGPlease FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list -- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
I will ping the GGG list until July 2, 2005, during SunkenCiv's temporary absence from the board.
If you see articles appropriate for the GGG ping list, please ping me.
thanks.
#20 was my reply.
Two things ~ (1) the first Mohican Indians met by the Europeans were about 7 feet tall. The Iriquois warrior elite tended to be about that tall too. They were rarely confused with white folk!
(2) the single most important archaeological discovery in the Western Hemisphere was the finding that the bow and arrow were invented circa 800 AD.
Up until that time the bow and arrow were strictly Old World tools. After that time it wasn't possible to say that.
So, you might ask, why were the Central New York Indians 7 feet tall?
The answer is, so they could use long bows, of course!
I doubt the Europeans ever met the Clovis people, or the Chinese who followed them to America.
There are other traits shared in roughly those proportions throughout the Japanese population.
It is wrong to give a number on the surviving Ainu ~ just about everyone in Japan has Ainu ancestry.
I agree. I was just using a range of numbers that I read most frequently. The most common number I read is 10,000.
I'm beginning to believe the Jomon/Ainu types dominated large areas of Asia in ancient times...even prior to the split off of the Mongoloids. I also believe the origin of todays Europeans may be present day China. Oppenheimer even speculates that they may have been Sundalanders.
Do these guys have any discretion at all? If they keep announcing everything they plan, they will be held up in court forever. Just quietly do the research and publish...IMO.
It is speculated that Asians came to America along the edge of the icecap. The same speculation can be made of similar travel across the North Atlantic., which is a shorter distance. Why not?
There is some very old stuff, ruins and pieces of handtools and things like that, that obviously came from the direction of Europe and Africa. They could hop over starting from the Canary Islands or Cape Verde to the West Indies in their bigger wood boats no problem. Crossing on the Pacific side would involve going three times farther before they arrived someplace. There shouldn't be any question about this.
The relative ease with which the Portuguese came from Africa to Brazil indicates that it didn't take much of a craft to accomplish this. Caravels certainly are not very big ships.
Weather would not be a huge problem except during hurricane season. A few days at sea, and Land, Ho!
I would love to see that!
In any case it looks like the previously "native americans" are going to be in second place.
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