Posted on 07/11/2005 11:48:33 AM PDT by jazzo
SEATTLE - Cloistered around padded tables, scientists from around the country have been peering through microscopes and measuring bone fragments trying to unearth the history of an ancient skeleton found along the Columbia River.
Researchers on Sunday offered details of their first comprehensive study of the 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man, one of the oldest and most complete skeletons ever found in North America.
The team of anthropologists, geochemists and data analysts have been busy assembling the skeleton's more than 300 bones and bone fragments at the University of Washington's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, where the remains have been since 1998.
"This individual's biography is written in his bones," said Dr. Hugh Berryman, a forensic anthropologist from Middle Tennessee State University. "This is a window into the past."
Scientists have been cataloguing some previously unidentified pieces and reevaluating others. They've also been measuring remains, examining cracks and breaks in the bones and studying various discoloration in an attempt to put Kennewick Man's past together.
Likening it to a Rembrandt, Berryman said scientists early on knew the skeleton had much to offer because of its age and completeness.
"I'm very interested in that skull," Berryman said as he pointed to ice-blue translucent plastic models of a skull and pelvis, sitting atop a boardroom table at the University Towers hotel near the university.
"There appears to be some European-type facial features." That, he said, could suggest there were other migrations of people other than those strictly out of Asia.
Certain skull measurements, including the shorter face and less width across the cheekbones, don't match that traditionally associated with Native American characteristics, said Dr. Douglas W. Owsley, a forensic anthropologist with the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
Those observations have been part of the nine-year legal battle between researchers and Northwest Indian tribes.
After the skeleton was found by two college students along the banks of the Columbia in 1996, the Umatilla, Yakama, Nez Perce and Colville tribes wanted the bones reburied without scientific study. They claimed they were entitled to the bones under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owned the land where the remains were found and was set to relinquish the bones. But scientists sued for a chance to study the remains.
Last year a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, agreeing with an earlier decision by a federal judge in Portland, Ore., ruled there was no link between the skeleton and the tribes.
The taphonomic, or forensic, study scientists will perform during their 10-day examination will help determine the effects that weather and animals had on Kennewick Man's remains after death. Ultimately, they'll focus on identifying his origins, and how he lived and died.
Models of the skull and pelvis, which has a projectile — perhaps a spearhead — embedded in a hip, will be used to construct permanent cast to be used for additional research and to minimize impact to the actual skeleton.
Later, researchers will be analyzing samples taken from fragments of the leg during government studies in 1999 and 2000.
No public viewing of the remains is yet planned by the Army Corps.
Indo-Europeans?
It was quite obvious to everybody who counted that Indians who lived in the vicinity of whites and blacks had an incredibly high infant mortality rate, etc. The only long term solution was to remove Indians to an area outside of the expanding non-Indian population. Recall, if you will, that all of this happened before the "germ theory of disease" had been developed, and more than a century prior to the development of the first antibiotics.
The initial destination was to be what is now Indiana. In fact, at that time most of what is now Indiana, and a large part of Indiana territory, consisted of swampland. It was felt at the time that most of the area was not fit for settlement in terms of ability to support modern agricultural techniques.
Then the New Madrid quake happened, Indiana pretty much drained off, and the whole territory became highly desirable for new settlement.
Of interest, long after Jackson, in the 1850s, there was a final payoff in both Chicago and in the South, where the Indian tribes moving West received money for their lands.
This was all done under treaty arrangements agreed to by the tribes.
Continuing payments have occurred as a consequence of federal "takings". For example, the BIA rented out Osage Indian land to oil companies. The Osage receive regular payments. Along the way BIA managed to lose several billion dollars of what it owed the Osage. This has happened on an even larger scale with all of the recognized tribes and Uncle Sam can be demonstrated to have absconded with tens of billions of dollars due Indians for mineral rights, etc.
There is currently a law suit in place regarding this little problem.
Federal government decisions cannot be made in terms of someone's religious beliefs.
McCain fears that we will discover that Kennewick Man is his first wife's brother.
ALL the people in the world outside of Africa are "Caucasion" ~ East Asians are merely a different type of white folk.
I have characterized the Indians' tribal traditions as a kind of religious belief. They may not define them that way, and if that label were to cause problems they can call them something else.
What kind of Caucasian? Azerbaijani, Armenian, Abkhazian, Avar, Circassian, Georgian?
There was an Indian war during George Washington's Presidency which ended with the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, by which the Indians involved were forced to cede a considerable amount of territory (mostly in Ohio).
You must remember that after 1648 the Indians were mostly dead from disease. It has taken nearly 3 centuries for them to recover to only a fraction of their former numbers.
Even the 300+ year long war between the Iriquois and Mohicans ended due to the fact the Iriquois had a marginally greater survival rate.
Indians in the East became, for the most part, professional meat hunters after that time.
You should take a look at what the Brotherton Indians did, and how the Kickapoo Indians became proponants of a separation of Indian and white settlement.
There were some combat situations AFTER that time, but they really weren't significant ~ whites began to vastly outnumber the Indians.
Too shamefully true.
Should be made right.
As bad as things turned out, without the "removal" policy in place, all the Indians would have died of Old World diseases long before the age of anti-biotics.
Time the Indians got a job and stop living in the past.
Perhaps.
But, "all of the Indians" would have been a lot of them.
I'm more than a bit skeptical that God would have allowed it to come to that regardless. Perhaps in the case of the more ruthless and blood thirsty amongst them. But I don't think so for the more 'benign' amongst the tribes. God has clearly reserved utter extinction for the very ruthless and blood thirsty throughout history.
That gives us something in excess of a 90% death rate.
Around about 1648 (and I think this occurs over a 3 year period) the Mohican Indians lost about 98%+ of their population. The Iriquois lost but 90% and thereby won the war with the Mohicans by outnumbering them.
So who is it God saves utter anihilation for?
Grrr. I should have copied before I clicked post. Lost it--and I'm sure it was better than what I'll manage now. Will see what I can redo.
1) 98% is NOT UTTER ANIHILATION.
2) When God does it, not a single soul survives. Sometimes, not even a single livestock critter survives.
3) Some Christians have felt led in recent decades to go to various Native American tribes and repent for the evil the whites did to them centuries ago.
4) Similarly, some Native American tribes have initiated or responded in kind for the evil they did to the whites.
5) As a result, great healing, release of resources and other healing miracles have occurred. God loves reconciliation, healing, restored relationships.
6) Regardless of whether an individual or group acknowledges the God above all God's or not--God has His standards. And, He holds all creation to His standards.
7) Given the example of the God-Man Christ, we no longer have any excuse for His standard of Sacrificial Love; doing unto others; Loving God wholly and others as ourselves. Thankfully, He enables what He requires--though He does require our cooperatioan in the enableling.
8) WE ARE ALL SUBJECT TO THE UNIVERSAL LAW OF:
REAPING WHAT WE SOW.
It was true in white/Native interactions. It's true in our families and work relationships. It's just true.
9) I stand by my earlier post. God tends to reserve utter anihilation for those who are wholesale blood-thirsty, vengeful, brutally harsh--especially upon innocents etc. . . those who know and vigorously, persistently rebell against His standards. Especially, those who spill innocent blood.
10) Yes, micro-biology had a part in tribes being devastated. It would be interesting to me to go back and compare the degree of devastation with their degree of ruthlessness. I would suspect a correlation.
11) You don't sound like you are overly aware of or concerned about God's standards. The world is going to hell in a handbasket. Perhaps you haven't noticed. At some point, you will be more than a little invited to be aware of, respect and own a much greater reverential awe of God. Scripture in the KJV says that the reverential awe "Fear of God" is the BEGINNING of wisdom. You will be invited to become wiser. I hope you take the opportunity.
Grrr. I should have copied before I clicked post. Lost it--and I'm sure it was better than what I'll manage now. Will see what I can redo.
1) 98% is NOT UTTER ANIHILATION.
2) When God does it, not a single soul survives. Sometimes, not even a single livestock critter survives.
3) Some Christians have felt led in recent decades to go to various Native American tribes and repent for the evil the whites did to them centuries ago.
4) Similarly, some Native American tribes have initiated or responded in kind for the evil they did to the whites.
5) As a result, great healing, release of resources and other healing miracles have occurred. God loves reconciliation, healing, restored relationships.
6) Regardless of whether an individual or group acknowledges the God above all God's or not--God has His standards. And, He holds all creation to His standards.
7) Given the example of the God-Man Christ, we no longer have any excuse for His standard of Sacrificial Love; doing unto others; Loving God wholly and others as ourselves. Thankfully, He enables what He requires--though He does require our cooperatioan in the enableling.
8) WE ARE ALL SUBJECT TO THE UNIVERSAL LAW OF:
REAPING WHAT WE SOW.
It was true in white/Native interactions. It's true in our families and work relationships. It's just true.
9) I stand by my earlier post. God tends to reserve utter anihilation for those who are wholesale blood-thirsty, vengeful, brutally harsh--especially upon innocents etc. . . those who know and vigorously, persistently rebell against His standards. Especially, those who spill innocent blood.
10) Yes, micro-biology had a part in tribes being devastated. It would be interesting to me to go back and compare the degree of devastation with their degree of ruthlessness. I would suspect a correlation.
11) You don't sound like you are overly aware of or concerned about God's standards. The world is going to hell in a handbasket. Perhaps you haven't noticed. At some point, you will be more than a little invited to be aware of, respect and own a much greater reverential awe of God. Scripture in the KJV says that the reverential awe "Fear of God" is the BEGINNING of wisdom. You will be invited to become wiser. I hope you take the opportunity.
You noted the 50 million drastically reduced population in Mexico, Central America etc.
You failed to note that those cultures were very bloody--enormous amounts of sacrificial blood letting--particularly, evidently with defeated tribes and even canabalism.
Plague and pestilance were used of God as a type of discipline, vengeance more than a time or two in the OT.
That's the way the universe has been structured. I didn't happen to build the universe and don't understand all of it ~ or, in fact, even a very small part of it very well.
Now, when you get a 90% level of destruction of any particular human population, and you figure 40% of almost any population (before antibiotics) are young children, you end up with quite a few innocents being killed.
God doesn't kill people.
Germs kill people. People kill people. Accidents kill people.
If you wish to argue your theological position, there are threads where that is appropriate.
I don't have a lot of things figured out either--especially conclusively. But some things I know. And a lot of things I'm pretty sure of.
It's a private conversation, not a public square issue. Anyway, as I always like to say (when opportunity presents) "Death to the Liberals and their running dog lackeys" ~ is that better?
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