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Army Corps of Engineers working with native American tribes to coordinate burial A local tribe, the Umatilla, had claimed the Kennewick Man as an ancestor; the Native American group wanted to lay the skeleton to rest according to custom.

Rediscovering AmericaThe New World may be 20,000 years older than experts thought BY CHARLES W. PETIT Late in the afternoon last May 17, a tired archaeological team neared the end of a 14-hour day winching muck to the deck of a Canadian Coast Guard vessel. It was in water 170 feet deep in Juan Perez Sound, half a mile offshore among British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands. For four days, team members had fruitlessly sieved undersea mud and gravel. Then, in the slanting light of sunset, a deckhand drew from the goop a triangular blade of dark basalt. Its sharp edge...

The case appears to be over and the stage set for scientific study, barring a federal appeal to the Supreme Court The convoluted legal fight for Kennewick Man's bones -- the remains found along the Columbia River almost eight years ago that make up one of the oldest, most complete skeletons found in North America -- is likely over. Four Northwest tribes seeking to bury the 9,300-year-old bones indicate they will not take their fight to the U.S. Supreme Court after losing in lower federal courts to scientists who want to study the remains. The bones now await a formal...

In July 1996, two college students were wading in the shallows of the Columbia River near the town of Kennewick, Wash., when they stumbled across a human skull. At first the police treated the case as a possible murder. But once a nearly complete skeleton emerged from the riverbed and was examined, it became clear that the bones were extremely old — 8,500 years old, it would later turn out. The skeleton, which came to be known as Kennewick Man or the Ancient One, is one of the oldest and perhaps the most important — and controversial — ever found...

Nearly two decades after the ancient skeleton called Kennewick Man was discovered on the banks of the Columbia River, the mystery of his origins appears to be nearing resolution. Genetic analysis is still under way in Denmark, but documents obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act say preliminary results point to a Native-American heritage.The researchers performing the DNA analysis “feel that Kennewick has normal, standard Native-American genetics,” according to a 2013 email to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for the care and management of the bones. “At present there is no indication he has a...

Instapundit: "The Army Corps of Engineers sure didnÂ’t want this researched, and continues to interfere today. Why? " Why? It blows the native "indians" narrative of 'we were here first' out of the water. Land claims and free money is g-o-n-e gone: As work progressed, a portrait of Kennewick Man emerged. He does not belong to any living human population. Who, then, are his closest living relatives? Judging from the shape of his skull and bones, his closest living relatives appear to be the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands, a remote archipelago 420 miles southeast of New Zealand, as...

Researchers spent 16 days poring over Kennewick Man — the skeleton found on the bank of the Columbia River in 1996 — in two visits to Seattle’s Burke Museum in 2005 and 2006, after a court ruling permitting the study. Since then, they’ve said little about what they’ve learned. A new, 688-page, peer-reviewed book, “Kennewick Man: The Scientific Investigation of an Ancient American Skeleton,” changes that. Texas A&M University Press is scheduled to publish the book in September.

For nearly a decade, scientists and Northwest tribes in Washington state fought bitterly over whether to bury or study the 9,500-year-old bones known as Kennewick Man. Scientists won the battle, and now, after years of careful examination, they're releasing some of their findings. For starters, Kennewick Man was buff. I mean, really beefcake. So says Doug Owsley, head of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, and the man who led the study of the ancient remains. Owsley can read the bones like we might read a book. He looks for ridge lines that indicate which muscles...

The Ainu are the indigenous people of Japan, inhabiting the Northern island of Hokkaido as well as the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Their name means “human”, or more accurately the opposite of the gods that inhabit all plants, objects, and animals in their heavily animistic religion. Thought to once inhabit all of Japan, the Ainu were pushed northward by the influx of immigration from Asia that occurred primarily during the Yayoi period of Japanese history around 2,300 years ago. The Ainu have faced a long history of oppression and hardship. Throughout the modern era, they have faced active assimilation, forced...

Thursday, August 10, 2006 Bill would allow study of ancient remains By SHANNON DININNY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS YAKIMA -- A federal law governing protection of American Indian graves would be amended to allow scientific study of ancient remains discovered on federal lands if the remains have not been tied to a current tribe, under a bill proposed by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. The bill marks the latest step in a dispute sparked by the 1996 discovery of Kennewick Man, one of the oldest and most complete skeletons ever found in North America. Indian tribes and researchers battled over rights to...

John Sirois is the cultural preservation administrator for the confederated tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation... They consider the Ancient One to be an ancestor in need of peace and want him reburied. Nine years and millions of dollars in litigation haven't done much to heal old wounds. Many Native Americans still dismiss archaeologists as glorified grave robbers. And Sirois says the antipathy seems to be mutual. John Sirois: "They still don't see native people as having knowledge the way they have knowledge. It might be quaint histories that have been passed down, but it's not 'real knowledge'."

Old bones are telling new tales BY SANDI DOUGHTONMay 5, 2006 The Seattle Times ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Behind two locked doors at Central Washington University, what might be called Son of Kennewick Man sits inside a cardboard box. The faceless skull dates back 9,000 years - just 400 years younger than the superstar skeleton unearthed from the banks of the Columbia River. While Kennewick Man ignited a legal battle over the control of ancient bones, the skull at CWU has barely raised a ripple. "It just misses the mark in terms of people's interest," said CWU anthropology professor Steven Hackenberger....

Kennewick Man Skeletal Find May Revolutionalize Continent's HistoryKennewick Man's Skull, front view A forensic anthropologist at Middle Tennessee State University is one of a select number of scientists to participate in the examination of a 9,300-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man that could force historians to rewrite the story of the entire North American continent. Newswise — A forensic anthropologist at Middle Tennessee State University is one of a select number of scientists to participate in the examination of a skeleton that could force historians to rewrite the story of the entire North American continent. Dr. Hugh Berryman, research professor,...

OK, You pick: Depiction by a renowned forensic scientist, or hideous, androgenous, mix-mash cartoon, pandering to the unrelated Northwest Natives? Or.. IMHO: Time should be ashamed. (not that it would ever happen, mind you.)

Kennewick Man was laid to rest alongside a river more than 9,000 years ago, buried by other people, a leading forensic scientist said Thursday. The skeleton, one of the oldest and most complete ever found in North America, has been under close analysis since courts sided with researchers in a legal battle with Indian tribes in the Northwest who wanted the remains found near the Columbia River reburied without study. Douglas Owsley, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, discussed his findings in remarks prepared for delivery Thursday evening at a meeting of the American Academy of...

James C. Chatters, a forensic archaeologist and paleoecologist whose life and career changed 10 years ago when the 9,400-year-old "Kennewick Man" was discovered, warned anthropology students here last week that "you never know where your career will take you." ...He told them that the aftermath of the Kennewick Man discovery has been "a hard thing," with the press portraying him as a racist and an Indian tribe with which he once had a good relationship blacklisting him. One of the first findings about the skeleton was that it had Caucasian features... His research has also revised his opinion about how...

Posted on Mon, Feb. 06, 2006Researcher seeks secrets of Kennewick ManBY SUSANNE RUSTMilwaukee Journal Sentinel MILWAUKEE - Ground to the bone, the teeth of the famous fossil skeleton, Kennewick Man, look as if they've spent a lifetime gnashing rocks. But it's from these worn choppers that Thomas Stafford Jr., a research fellow in the department of geology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and president of Stafford Research Laboratories in Boulder, Colo., plans to learn about the origins, movement and lifestyle of this highly controversial, 9,000-year-old North American. In 1996, Kennewick Man was discovered on the banks of the Columbia River...

Kennewick Man, meet your distant cousins By Kate Riley Monday, November 7, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM COLUMBIA, S.C. — Discerning the story of America's prehistoric past is a bit like groping through an unfamiliar room in the dark. One learned scientist's tattooing tool is another's piece of rock. Ask them to agree how long it has been there and you're bound to set off an argument that makes Seattle's whether-to-monorail conflict seem like a tea party. So it goes with evolving thought in archaeology. We all know the prevailing theory. Our children's high-school textbooks talk about the...

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...

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...