Tom McClelland of Richland shows the skull casting of Kennewick Man. He and anthropologist Jim Chatters used to re-create the facial features of the 9,200-year-old discovery.
Herald/André Ranieri
June 3, 2001
Richland scientist explores ancient Americans' origins
This story was published June 3, 2001
Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans, by James C. Chatters, Simon & Schuster, 2001, 303 pages, $26. By Andy Perdue Herald staff writer Quite simply, Kennewick Man is the biggest story of our time.
The discovery of 9,500-year-old bones along the Columbia River is bigger than any sports event, any terrorist attack and any presidential election. It's about the early inhabitants of this continent and our understanding of who they were and how they got here.
Kennewick Man is a journalist's dream, a story with legs. Next month is the fifth anniversary of the skeleton's discovery, yet interest globally remains high, in part because of the interest in the science and history of Kennewick Man, but mostly because the issue is so politically charged.
James Chatters, the Richland archaeologist and forensic scientist who handled the skull after it was discovered and found most of the rest of the skeleton, is the only expert to study Kennewick Man in any depth - and he had just a short time to do that before the ancient bones were taken by the Army Corps of Engineers. Chatters has written a book about the experience and his studies of other ancient bones that can help us understand the origins of ancient North Americans.
Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans, which will be released Thursday, is the fourth book on Kennewick Man and the most authoritative and scientific in its approach because of Chatters' expertise and firsthand knowledge of the bones.
Chatters opens with his proposed version of Kennewick Man's last hours alive, a touching approach that grabs the reader's attention. He then dives into the story of the discovery and his involvement.
Much to his dismay, Chatters ended up in the middle of a firestorm over the bones because American Indians, particularly the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, claimed the bones as their own under federal repatriation law.
Upon examination, Chatters said the bones were Caucasoid in nature, which many mistook to mean "white." From his experience and viewpoint, Chatters and other scientists didn't see how Kennewick Man could be associated with any modern American Indian tribes because the bones seemed to tell another story.
But that story quickly was quashed when the Corps got involved, seized the bones from Chatters and planned to give them to the Umatillas for reburial. What followed was a legal battle between eight prominent scientists (a group that didn't include Chatters) and the government that continues today. A federal judge is scheduled to rule on the lawsuit June 19 in Portland.
Chatters would prefer to keep his book on Kennewick Man straightforward and scientific in nature, but Ancient Encounters can't help but be political by the story's very nature.
He discusses his past work with American Indians, particularly the Colville tribe, in analyzing and repatriating bones. He's obviously sympathetic to the tribes and their points of view on ancient remains. He points out his wife and daughter are part American Indian, so he, too, has a stake in the tribal side of the story.
In the first half of Ancient Encounters, Chatters describes the discovery and early research, then the hapless bungling by the Corps that led to the endless legal arguments and proceedings.
It's obvious Chatters just wants to be a scientist, to learn about what the bones can tell us, then do the right thing with them, whether that means reburying them or keeping them for study. He's been hurt by the accusations and the severed ties with tribal members, and he's horrified by the bones' treatment in the possession of the government.
Once the Kennewick Man story runs dry, Chatters looks at other ancient skeletons and uses seemingly disparate clues to find some answers to the epic story of the earliest Americans. Chatters' investigation starts when he still has Kennewick Man and is getting an additional opinion from a colleague at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. While there, he notices part of another skull on a shelf that seems similar to Kennewick Man. After much study, he is able to pinpoint "Stick Man" as likely being from the same era and area as Kennewick Man.
This exciting discovery propels Chatters to look at bones from Idaho, Nevada, Texas, Washington and elsewhere. He leads the reader through his research and into a discussion on early migration patterns and why the long-regarded Clovis First model of ancient immigrants coming from Siberia across a land bridge through Alberta probably is wrong, and offers alternative theories.
Throughout Ancient Encounters, Chatters uses science, not rhetoric, to make his claim that Kennewick Man was from an ancient and probably extinct people who in no way could be mistaken for being ancestors to modern American Indians. He isn't some knee-jerk redneck who wants to reduce tribal claims but a scientist who believes that is what Kennewick Man tells him.
Ancient Encounters is an exciting, approachable and important book that should be read by anyone fascinated by the Kennewick Man story and interested in our origins.
For More Reading on Kennewick Man
The Indians are really fighting to keep any scientific information from being learned. They don't want us to discover that they are not the "First Americans"
