In July of 1996, college students Will Thomas and Dave Deacy waded along the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington where the annual boat race and festival were being held. As they paused to finish their beers, Will stumbled upon a round rock, which he jokingly told Dave was a human skull. Pulling the rock from the muddy water, he found out he wasn’t joking after all. He had just discovered the remains of a long-dead human who would eventually become known as Kennewick Man, a subject of scientific wonder and political controversy whose final fate may have finally been determined.
Police located other bones and sent them off to the “State Crime Lab” – in this case, the bottom half of forensic anthropologist James Chatters’ split level home. Chatters’ initial impression was that the remains belonged to a modern Caucasian male, but further investigation revealed discrepancies: extremely worn down teeth and a spear point embedded in the hip.
Radiocarbon dating deepened the mystery. Kennewick Man was not just old, he clocked in at an ancient 9,500 years. Yet in his features he was nothing like the North Asian hunters believed to have colonized the Americas by crossing the Bering Strait into Alaska. Nor was he particularly like any other group of modern humans. Despite the fact that his facial reconstruction recalls Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart, he has most in common with modern Polynesians and the Japanese Ainu.
Kennewick Man is an anomaly, a landmark archaeological find. He could provide invaluable evidence for determining how America was first settled, whether through one migration or through several waves. Yet just one month within his discovery, the battle had begun to rebury him for all eternity, along with any answers he could give us about the first Americans.
The threat arose under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which gives existing tribes jurisdiction over remains that can be identified as their ancestors. The law is a reasonable response to the exploitation of Native American gravesites at the hands of archaeologists. However, it requires a very low standard of proof (“a preponderance of the evidence”) for a tribe to successfully make a claim. Thus there have been cases of ancient remains being irrevocably lost to tribes forbidding any study. Five tribes in Washington have attempted to send Kennewick Man to the same fate.
Since the remains were found on government land, settling the dispute fell to the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Interior; both groups sided with political correctness over human knowledge. First, the COE pre-empted Congressional action by burying the discovery site under many tons of dirt. Then Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt ruled that Kennewick Man was indeed culturally affiliated with the tribes and must be repatriated for assured burial. His basis? The oral histories of the tribes, which by his own admission received no support from scientific evidence.
This, of course, was complete nonsense. Evidence for tribal continuity goes back to at most 2000-3000 years. Making an additional 6000-year leap was simply a feat of fancy. It placated the tribes, but if allowed to stand it would have had a terrible chilling effect on science. Any remains discovered within the U. S., no matter how old, could be snapped up and buried solely on the basis of geography, their histories forever untold.
Fortunately, an appeals court ruling of two weeks ago upholds a previous judges’ decision to overrule Babbitt and allow study to go forward. This ruling places Kennewick Man on firmer footing, establishes a properly limited scope to NAGPRA, and protects future discoveries. The controversy over studying Kennewick Man could finally be at an end, letting the scientific controversy over what he can tell us about the first Americans to truly begin.
The tribes still have time to make another appeal, but for now Kennewick Man is in good care instead of rotting in the soil. Finally, seven years after his recovery, this messenger from the past can begin to reveal his secrets.
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