It is hard enough getting ancient DNA/radiocarbon samples now, and they want to add this kind of language to the law?
The sordid history of this controversy proves that the Tribes have great influence over federal agencies:
On October 17, 1996, eight anthropologists, including three from the Smithsonian, filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon: Bonnichsen v. United States (U.S.D.C. Dist. Or. No. 96-1481-JE). The case was assigned to a magistrate judge, who held a hearing on Plaintiffs motion for temporary restraining order on October 23, 1996. Defendants, various United States government entities including the Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Interior, avoided an injunction by agreeing to give the Plaintiffs 14 days notice before any disposition of the remains (enough time to seek a temporary restraining order). A protracted legal battle ensued. The first phase concluded with an order from Judge Jelderks, directing the Corps to reevalaute the issues applying the appropriate legal stanards, and to store the remains “in a manner that preserves their scientific value”. Bonnischen v. United States, 969 F. Supp. 628 (D.Or. 1997).
By the time Judge Jelderks entered this order, the Corps had already lost the femur bones (discovered five years later in the county coroner’s evidence locker) . Then, “under circumstances which have never beeen satisfactorily explained” (August 30, 2002 “Opinion and Order” at 8) a box containing a small quantity of bones from the Kennewick skeleton was removed by Tribal representatives from the Corps’ allegedly “secure” storage and secretly buried. The Corps allowed Tribal representatives to visit the remains and conduct religious ceremonies, allowing them to be handled, covered with contemporary plant material and smoke from cedar or sage, which compromised later DNA analysis.
In April 1998, the Army Corps of Engineers buried the discovery site with two (2) millions pounds of rubble and dirt, delivered by helicopter at a cost of over $150,000 to the United States’ taxpayers, and planted 3700 fast-growing willow, dogwood and cottonwood trees.
The reason for the Corps’ haste was a bill, pending in the United States Congress, to amend NAGPRA and prohibit the Corps’ destruction of the site.
>The new language would add two words: “...is, or was, indigenous...” <
Hm...so I qualify under Affirmative Action rules now?
Thanks for posting this.
“This is no technical correction. It’s a major change in federal law that would lead to an impoverished understanding of American prehistory — an “open season on open inquiry” that neither Senator Clinton nor anybody who wants to understand the human past should accept.”
***In other words, bad science.
My first instinct is to follow the money. I imagine there’s big bucks at stake.
My second instinct is to tabulate the location of all the white commie hippy chicks who hang around reserves and lead certain tribal members around by the nose.
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Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. |
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Senate Bill Could Untie Kennewick Man Bones
Tricity Herald | 10-4-2007 | Annette Cary
Posted on 10/04/2007 8:36:07 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1906748/posts
Sorry, I couldn't resist ;-)