Last Word On Kennewick Man?

Archaeology ^ | 11-17-2002

[blam]

I have Chatter's book, it's pretty good. Chatters lives in Kennewick, Washington and did the lead work on Kennewick Man.

[blam]

More on Kennewick Man

[blam]

Kennewick Man

[error99]

bump

[Little Bill]

I am glad this issue is settled at least for the time being. It seems to me that he dancing around a lot of issues about the peopling of the Americas though.

[BenLurkin]

The interviewee seems calm, decent and rational. His acceptance of draconian "cultural heritage laws" is hard to understand though, since he has seen first hand the madness of Big Brother.

[syriacus]

Thank you for posting this. It's nice to be able to keep up with the ongoing saga of Kennewick Man.

[dodger]

Actually, Kennwick Man is no doubt a registered Democrat who voted just two weeks ago!

[blam]

"The interviewee seems calm, decent and rational. His acceptance of draconian "cultural heritage laws" is hard to understand though, since he has seen first hand the madness of Big Brother."

His book indicates the same. His life was threatened a number of times. Read his book, there were some pretty 'hairy' encounters with the Indians.

[DeaconBenjamin]

A good interview, but I don't understand his point: We can't silently condone desecration of Indian graves and keep the bones of people's known kin on museum shelves and expect the general populace to see living Native Americans as fellow beings. How do displays of skeletons encourage the view or treatment of individuals as sub-human?

[Route66]

Kennewick Man looks a lot like Jean-Luc Picard... (Patrick Stewart).

[Cicero]

Well, think about it this way. How would you like it if somebody dug up your parents and displayed them in a museum?

A fair balance needs to be struck. There really was a tendency for scientists to treat Indian remains differently than they would treat the remains of people they knew or were related to.

[DeaconBenjamin]

My point was not that the law is wrong and should be repealed. I support allowing Indians (the ones I've spoken to hate the term Native American) greater control over the remains of their ancestors. I just don't understand the logic of asserting that the display of skeletons would naturally lead the observer to view a group of people as subhuman.

To answer your question directly, I would not be surprised if I had ancestors whose skeletons were on display somewhere. Nor would I be surprised if some had been used as cadavers. It's not a real biggie to me.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[blam]

"Kennewick Man looks a lot like Jean-Luc Picard... (Patrick Stewart)."

9,400 Year Old Spirit Cave Man, found in Nevada. From the same group as Kennewick Man

[zebra 2]

Bit of a stretch, isn't it? Comparing KM to one's parents? What do you have in mind, P x 1000? I'd say them genes is diluted.

[WFTR]

How do displays of skeletons encourage the view or treatment of individuals as sub-human?

I'm just guessing, but I'll try to give an analogy that might illustrate the problem that some people have with these displays. I would guess that somewhere in Massachusetts, New York, and other New England towns you could find the graves of many of the people who emigrated to America on the Mayflower and other early sailing vessels. While we might actually learn some interesting things from the study of their bones, I think many people would find it unseemly to dig them up now, study them, and display their bones in museums. Modern American Indians may feel the same way about American Indians from the same time period (early North American exploration and colonial) being exhumed from their traditional burial grounds and displayed.

In my opinion, studies could still be done if there was a legitimate practical or academic reason for them, but the remains should be buried decently again when the study is complete.

WFTR
Bill

[Justa]

I'm sure this will be explained in a future episode.