9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocks study of Kennewick Man bones! (they just won't let it go!)

AP via SF Gate ^ | Thursday, February 20, 2003 | AP Editorial Staff

[vannrox]

Eight anthropologists who want to study an ancient skeleton must want until a federal court has heard an appeal of the case by four Northwest tribes that consider the bones sacred.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision, made last week, prevents any study of the 9,300-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man, which scientists have sought to examine since 1996.

[Varda]

Topper likewise looks promising but...

" Goodyear was "shocked" by what his volunteers began to unearth from below the Clovis level: small blades of chert, chiseled stone "burins" or needles--possibly for decorating bone--and other fragments. His team found no biface tools or charcoal for dating, which would make the artifacts more convincing. But Steven Forman of the University of Illinois, Chicago, dated the sand just above these microlithics by optically stimulated luminescence to an age of about 15,500 calendar years or a radiocarbon date of about 13,000 years BP, says Goodyear--making them clearly pre-Clovis. These findings haven't been published, but skeptics tend to accept Goodyear's dates and geology; what they question is whether the stone pieces were made by humans."
(Pre-Clovis Sites Fight for Acceptance, Science, 2 Mar 2001)

The acceptance of these interpretations seems to change with the weather. Vance Haynes has done a back flip on Monte Verde. Oh well, it certainly makes for a great spectator sport.

[templar]

Not only was the Corpse of Engineers involved in burying this story,...

That's not what the article is about. The article, and my comments, deal only with the motion of the Indian tribes as stated, not secret or speculative motivations of other parties or agencies or courts. This article details the legal manuever of the tribes to prevent the study of these bones. Do they wish to suppress the truth? Are they afraid of what the studies may reveal? In don't know one way or the ohter, but I suspect the answer may be yes. But that's not what the article deals with.

[blam]

Dillehay is claiming another site not far from Monte Verde will date in the 35,000-50,000 range. Of cource, all is disputed.

The 50,000-Year-Old Americans Of Pedra Furada

[blam]

Calico: A 200,000-Year-Old Site In The Americas?

[blam]

Rainforest Researchers Hit Paydirt (Farming 11K Years Ago In South America)

[Spunky]

Clinton sent the same guy who did the autopsies at Waco to "manage" the site. It was he who ordered the place bulldozed and cottonwoods planted on top.

Where did you get that information? It was the Army Corp of Engineers that covered it over. No bulldozer (Helicopter dumping bucket after bucket of dirt and gravel) No cottonwoods were planted (There are some existing Russian Olive trees surrounding the area.)

I live right across the river from where Kennewick Man was found. The Army Corp of Engineers has control of the area along the Columbia River. They had started the process of covering the site when our Congressman Doc Hastings put in a bill to halt the Corp from covering it over. The bill passed the house, passed the senate, but before it could be registered as having passed, The Army Corp of Engineers was ordered by the then Commander in Chief, Clinton, to continue covering it over.

An aerial view shows the area of Columbia Park where Kennewick Man was found in July 1996

The site where Kennewick Man was discovered in July 1996 is overgrown with vegetation in July 1998, four months after the Army Corps of Engineers covered the area with dirt and burlap and vegetation.

[Carry_Okie]

I first got some of that information from an article written at the time by Lowell Ponte. It has since vanished from the FrontPage Magazine website archives. I saved the text long ago, in anticipation of the continuing battle:

Dr. Doug Owsley, curator and division head for physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum, along with seven other scientists, filed a lawsuit to prevent the government from turning the skeleton over to Indians and to seek research access to the remains. Available evidence suggests that Kennewick Man had no "cultural affiliation" with Indians, as NAGPRA requires. The closest thing to such an affiliation might have been the Indian arrowhead lodged painfully in this ancient man’s hip bone.

The scientists’ lawsuit has impeded the Clinton-desired cover-up of Kennewick Man. It also opened the way for transfer of more than 350 bone pieces to the University of Washington’s Burke Museum in Seattle, where they remain under lock and key—or most do. Of a dozen femur bone pieces collected and recorded, as of January 1999, only two reportedly could still be accounted for. The rest have apparently been stolen in what Dr. Owsley called "a deliberate act of desecration."

And from another source:

Two years ago some private citizens filed a law suit against the government, seeking to stop the internment. Among the plaintiffs is Dr. Douglas Owsley, division head of physical anthropology for the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History.

http://x34.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=438607284

Recall that the FBI issued public statements that the Branch Davidians had killed each other and set themselves on fire on April 19, 1993. Given that the Mt. Carmel Center was (allegedly) the scene of a mass murder/suicide, highest professional standards should have been used to recover the bodies. Procedures for recovering bodies in a crime scene are of utmost importance. The environment in which bodies are recovered is packed with evidence of the time, circumstances, and cause of death, essential in murder investigations.

http://www.Public Action.com/SkyWriter/WacoMuseum/death/page/d_hb.html

Dr. Owsley is trained in these methods. In fact the Smithsonian Institution's anthropology department has had a long standing relationship with the FBI for decades, ostensibly helping the FEB solve crimes and identify victims.

Dr. Owsley's colleague, Dr. Douglas Ubelaker (the curator of anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian), has written a popular book on the work of forensic anthropologists ("Bones, A Forensic Detectives Casebook," Edward Burlingame Books, 1992.) The dustjacket tells us Dr. Ubelaker is a top consultant to the FBI.

Says Ubelaker: "A smart detective knows how much may be learned from the environment in which a body has been found," (pg. 105).

Both Dr. Owsley and Dr. Ubelaker were sent to Waco to help the locals recover the bodies of the Branch Davidians from the ruins of Mt. Carmel.

Clinton was particularly adept at using the undertaker to cover the crime. Remember that bit about those two kids in Mena and Bernie Malek?

[Spunky]

Carry_Okie, I am almost sure Owsley didn't enter the picture until Oct 1998 when an inventory was taken of the bones to prepare for transport to University of Washington. (I think it was) So many strange things happened with the bones while they were at the PPNL though who knows what went on.

Owsley details inventory work.

[SunkenCiv]

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

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