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.
Oppenheimer says that although his DNA data indicates there were only three 'waves' of entrants to the Americas...he still believes (other data) there were five different waves.
I wish we could get more info about the bog/swamp mummies found in Florida. The original DNA sample that was used to declare them 'European' was found to be contaminated with modern DNA.
I know who you are talking about but I can't spell it either! lol
The Ainu might have been a European people. The oldest pictures of them show red hair and beards, as well as taller stature than modern day Japanese. Why else would they be discriminated against?
Hi Blam. We have the same issue of discrimination against a tribe in China, one now known to be the descendants of the very definitely European Tocharians, who brought us the silk road, suture and other innovations, technologies formerly credited to the Chinese. Like KM, the liberals refuse to acknowledge the facts. Check out Nova's "Mysterious Mummies of China" and you'll see what I mean. There is irrefuteable evidence that these European people were wiped out by modern Chinese, and the racist Chinese government tried to cover it up as the evidence surfaced.
When they say KM was an "Ainu" that is code for white or mixed race. This is a huge blow to white hating liberals. I am in 7th heaven.
"About 40% of Japanese have Jomon (Ainu) teeth. 60% have the type of teeth common among the Chinese and American Indians."
American Indians are Mongoloids. Ainu are European and Mongoloid mix. There's no surprise here.
Sorry, Ainu are NOT European. The big split is between European types and East Asian types. There's a further East Asian split between the Chinese types and the NE Asian types we call Ainu, or in ancient Japan, the Jomon.<
The Northernmost population is almost 90% A+. This is where the Sa'ami live. Although many of them look particularly Asiatic, you find a sudden, very precipitous fall-off in A+ blood as you move to the East.
One interpretation is that the Sa'ami are different than their Eastern neighbors even if they look alike.
This suggests that the original European population circa Toba looked much more like the Asian population of the time and we see a residual of that in Samiland.
There's also a precipitous falloff in blood type A+ as you move South as well. That's where you encounter a much more recent movement of people into Europe from the Middle-East and Africa.
That old saying the French and Germans have that "Africa begins at the Pyranees" is wrong ~ Africa actually begins at the Baltic! (ROTFLMAO).
The Nazi racialists would have really been upset at what we know now, eh?!
Doesn't really matter, since "mohawk" was not what we called ourselves. We are Kahniankehaka, the People of the Flint. The word "Mohawk" came from the word "Mohowaanuck", which meant "man-eater" in the language of those Narragansett wussies. The europeans picked up on that and it stuck...
However, I have heard and read many times that our people at some point may have migrated from the Southwest somewhere. So, who knows?
If I recall correctly there is, or was, a nation of indians in Northern Mexico, Southern Texas where historically incidents of Red Hair and Blue Eyes was fairly high pre-contact...
Very cool, thanks.
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