Posted on 02/22/2006 1:25:48 PM PST by Spunky
Scientists plan to disclose their findings about Kennewick Man on Thursday in Seattle, nearly a decade after the discovery of the 9,000-year-old skeleton that attracted worldwide interest and sparked a lengthy legal fight.
"Kennewick's story is finally going to get told," said Cleone Hawkinson, president of Friends of America's Past. Hawkinson has been working for years to ensure Kennewick Man's bones would be studied by the top scientists in the country.
Kennewick Man's bones are significant to scientists because they are considered one of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found. Scientists have theorized he was about 45 years old when he died, and had been wounded by a stone projectile.
Doug Owsley, the forensic anthropologist for the Smithsonian and the lead scientist studying Kennewick Man, will detail his findings at the American Academy of Forensic Scientists annual meeting.
He wouldn't reveal details about his upcoming speech, but he hinted it will be significant.
"I think you will be surprised at what all is accomplished," he said. "I'm anxious to share it. I think you will be taken aback with how much information is going to come out."
Owsley plans to say whether Kennewick Man was buried or not, and if his bones laid in the same position until he was discovered. Scientists have long wondered whether Kennewick Man drowned or was buried along the river.
The Mid-Columbia's most famous resident was found in 1996 along the shores of the Columbia River by teenagers sneaking their way into Water Follies, the annual hydroplane races.
The discovery of the ancient skull and bones triggered a nine-year-long legal clash between scientists, the federal government and Native American tribes who claimed Kennewick Man as their ancestor.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately ruled in the scientists' favor, allowing the first studies of the bones last summer.
Nearly all the scientists who were original plaintiffs in the case plan to attend Thursday's speech in front of the nation's finest forensic experts.
"I think I am going to be nervous that day," Owsley said.
The scientist has been working on the Kennewick Man project off and on since July's weeklong study at the Burke Museum in Seattle. He and a dozen experts have been coordinating their findings since leaving Seattle for their respective universities, project sites and labs around the country.
About 15 scientists will be conducting a second study of the bones this week at the University of Washington's Burke Museum in Seattle, Hawkinson said. Kennewick Man's remains are housed in the museum.
"It's a wonderful thing to have them all in the same place," she said.
This week's study will focus less on how Kennewick Man's bones changed over the centuries, and more on how he lived. Scientists likely will spend long hours at the lab, Owsley said.
Scientists plan to inspect Kennewick Man's hands and feet, the dimensions of his skull and look for repetitive stress to his bones. That will help them determine more about his daily life, his health and where he might have come from, Owsley said.
It's the last study planned for the bones. But Owsley said it's likely scientists will seek more studies in the future to confirm their findings and answer more questions.
Hawkinson said she expects experts from other countries will request the chance to study the bones as well. European, Asian and South American scientists are interested in how the skeleton compares to ancient remains in their countries.
But Hawkinson said all the tests and studies are sure to raise just as many questions as they answer.
"There may be some things that we will never know," she said.
Kenewick man has POLITICAL implications.
It shatters the meme of "indians were always here".
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Kennewick Man was Ainu/Polynesian, like the ones you see in Japan and South Pacific. I bet they also lived in Korea before the modern day Koreans came.
Yeah, but all those greebacks he jumped with have serial numbers & dates on them. You don't suppose the scientists could have missed that? /sarcasm
yep.. interesting. pretty darn exciting.
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I don't know if you've cruised this site, but I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
As far as I can tell he was something like an Ainu-Mongol of some kind and has bone structure unlike the tribes there today. How would a Caucasian (European) find his way over to the West Coast of the USA??? East Coast I can see but not the West Coast which is where Kennewick Man was found. The Indian tribes have been disgraceful in this affair
(McCain, of course, looked worse than most, as he always does)
Just the other day on another thread an article suggested that European Ice-Age hunters very often followed the seal herds out onto the ice with skin boats and by hopping between ice floes.
When you stop to consider the "Bering Strait land bridge" theory of American Indian migration from Asia, the "skin boat and floe hopping idea" doesn't sound that far fetched.
We know from our own history that Amerindian tribes were often exceedingly welcoming and helpful to strangers (just as the American 'Pilgrims', Columbus and Cortez). The Polynesians settled the entire Pacific by island hopping. It's not out of the realm of possibility that an Ice Age European found himself adrift or lost and found his way to America, and was helped and defended by the 'native' tribes. Given enough time to learn the 'native' culture, and how to survive in a strange land, an Ice Age European could (relatively) easily make his way from the East Coast to the West. Either on his own, as a slave or as a fugitive.
The biggest problem is that the ancient people in question did not leave any written records, and what evidence is found of them is subjected to review through the lens of political correctness and the prevailing theories being taught as fact.
In this regard, Kennewick Man MUST be viewed through the lens of theories that, as yet, cannot be proven and possibly will never be proven.
It's the same logic that states that because we find more early human fossils (for example), of greater age, in Eithiopia or South Africa, that mankind originiated in that continent. One would expect to find more of them in the remote areas of Africa, which have not seen destructive warfare or repeated development, unlike Europe or most of Asia.
Right now the answers to some of these questions might be buried under the streets of Moscow, Beijing, London or Katmandu, but no one is digging there, are they? The reasons why are obvious. So, without definitive proof of anything, we simply postulate a theory and then fit the available evidence into it, and then proceed to call it fact.
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