New DNA Results Show Kennewick Man Was Native American

The New York Times ^ | 18 June 2015 | Carl Zimmer

[Theoria]

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 in North America. Native American tribes claimed that the bones were the remains of an ancestor and moved to reclaim them in order to provide a ritual burial.

But a group of scientists filed a lawsuit to stop them, arguing that Kennewick Man could not be linked to living Native Americans. Adding to the controversy was the claim from some scientists that Kennewick Man’s skull had unusual “Caucasoid” features. Speculation flew that Kennewick Man was European.

A California pagan group went so far as to file a lawsuit seeking to bury the skeleton in a pre-Christian Norse ceremony.

On Thursday, Danish scientists published an analysis of DNA obtained from the skeleton. Kennewick Man’s genome clearly does not belong to a European, the scientists said.

“It’s very clear that Kennewick Man is most closely related to contemporary Native Americans,” said Eske Willerslev, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Nature. “In my view, it’s bone-solid.”

[Scrambler Bob]

People will be astonished, I predict, when DNA research uncovers the frequency of ‘fence-jumping’. —

Let’s do a little research on ancient Brit, Scot, Irish Royalty.

Or Wilt the Stilt.

[Scrambler Bob]

Found buried just below the bottom of a river. —

Maybe DNA was from DB Cooper.

[blam]

The real shocker, see post #105 on the below linked thread, these people are European

"Native just means the first humans in some spot. Native Americans is an accurate term."

Bye, Bye Beringia (8,000 Year Old Site In Florida)

"*Skeletal remains of 169 people, split almost evenly between males and females, ranging from 6 to 70 years old. About 75 of the skeletons were relatively intact.
*90 intact human brains that include the oldest DNA samples in the World.
*Artifacts of wood, bone, and seed that were made into jewelry and tools, providing insight into the ancient peoples' lives.
*Tests showed the oldest skeletons were buried 8,100 years ago. The youngest was placed in the ground 6,900 years ago. "To put this into context," Doran said, "these people had already been dead for 3,000 or 4,000 years before the first stones were laid for the Egyptian pyramids!"

[Flag_This]

"BTW for those who don't remember, the reason he was thought to be Caucasion was because the forensics expert who first looked at him had no expertise with ancient skeletons. He quickly realized his error and recanted the original idea."

That's not correct. He described some of the features of the skull as "caucasoid" - he never declared it to be caucasian. James Chatters is an archaeologist and founded a firm "specializing in forensic and archaeological consulting" and in that capacity had worked with ancient skeletons, though not one that was 9500 years old, since there were only a few that were that old ever found in North America. As far as quickly recanting any error, he wrote a book five years after the discovery and didn't recant anything.

[Varda]

Yes your right it was James Chatters. For some reason I remembered him as two people instead of one guy with two areas of expertise. He was initially acting as a standard forensic anthropologist. The kind used for homicide investigations. He believed the skeleton was a European settler then quickly changed his mind.

[Varda]

I believe that show was aired during the time that they thought haplogroup X was exclusively European (and NA). That idea had us all going for awhile.

[TurboZamboni]

North Dakota has a new entry for new name!

The Fighting Kennewick Men!

[Flag_This]

"Yes your right it was James Chatters."

I was able to recall that because I literally finished his book yesterday morning ("Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans"). In that book, which was from 2001, he believed that the people who most physically resembled Kennewick Man were the Polynesians and the Ainu from Japan. He didn't say Kennewick Man was Ainu, or Polynesian, just that they shared the most physical characteristics.

[Redcitizen]

Grandpa!! Thats where he wandered off to.

[Redcitizen]

Those youtube video clips of the guys finding out they are not the father are hilarious!

[blam]

"I believe that show was aired during the time that they thought haplogroup X was exclusively European (and NA). That idea had us all going for awhile."

You are correct. I think Kennewick Man is X2a.

Origin and Diffusion of mtDNA Haplogroup X

Abstract.

A maximum parsimony tree of 21 complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences belonging to haplogroup X and the survey of the haplogroup-associated polymorphisms in 13,589 mtDNAs from Eurasia and Africa revealed that haplogroup X is subdivided into two major branches, here defined as “X1” and “X2.” The first is restricted to the populations of North and East Africa and the Near East, whereas X2 encompasses all X mtDNAs from Europe, western and Central Asia, Siberia, and the great majority of the Near East, as well as some North African samples. Subhaplogroup X1 diversity indicates an early coalescence time, whereas X2 has apparently undergone a more recent population expansion in Eurasia, most likely around or after the last glacial maximum. It is notable that X2 includes the two complete Native American X sequences that constitute the distinctive X2a clade, a clade that lacks close relatives in the entire Old World, including Siberia. The position of X2a in the phylogenetic tree suggests an early split from the other X2 clades, likely at the very beginning of their expansion and spread from the Near East.

[MaxMax]

Asian.