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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...

KENNEWICK (Benton County) — Hours after he was arrested for investigation of harassment of his estranged girlfriend and then released, a man was shot to death by police Saturday as he stabbed her in the neck, authorities said. Two officers used chemical spray on Marlon St. Mark German, 34, who had a long record of violence, but the 6-foot, 250-pound man refused to back down and was "actually sticking the knife into the female was when the shot was fired," police chief Kenneth M. Hohenberg said Sunday. "This would have been a homicide if the officers had not stepped in,"...

UKIAH, Calif. — A Washington woman says she made up a story about being kidnapped and abandoned four days later in a Ukiah garbage bin. Rebecca Huston, 32, of Kennewick, Wash., gave investigators there a four-page signed statement admitting her story was a hoax. "She was open and honest, but sadly after the fact," Kennewick Police Sgt. Randy Maynard said. Maynard said Huston described during a two-hour interview on Monday how she had been suffering from depression. On her way to work April 13, Huston told police she suddenly decided to abandon her job and drive down the West Coast.

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,...

A Kennewick woman was pulled alive from a northern California landfill after she reportedly was carjacked and kidnapped while driving to work. Rebecca Huston, 32, was last heard from last Wednesday evening. Friends and family began searching for her after she failed to show up for work at a veterinary clinic in Richland. A landfill employee at the Ukiah Transfer Station in Ukiah, Calif., about 100 miles north of San Francisco on Highway 101, saw Huston's feet sticking out from a garbage pile Tuesday morning. Huston spent Tuesday night at a hospital where she was treated for a cut head,...

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.)

SEATTLE -- Kennewick Man was buried by other humans. That finding, which scientists have pondered for nearly 10 years, was finally confirmed Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists here. The scientists also have concluded the ancient skull appears different than those of Indian tribes who lived in the area. Scientists long had wondered whether Kennewick Man, whose 9,000-year-old skeleton was found 10 years ago in Columbia Park alongside the Columbia River, was naturally covered with silt or if others had laid him to rest. The answer is he was laid out on his back,...

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...

Kennewick Man to be studied in Seattle This story was published Monday, June 20th, 2005 By Anna King, Herald staff writer Scientists say they are wrapping up final arrangements to study Kennewick Man's remains in early July at University of Washington's Burke Museum in Seattle. The 9,400-year-old skeleton found along the banks of the Columbia River in 1996 has been the focus of a bitter nine-year court battle between the federal government, Mid-Columbia Native American tribes that claim the bones as their ancestor and the scientists who want to study the remains. Scientists from around the country plan to convene...

Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - Page updated at 01:17 p.m Kate Riley / Times staff columnist Another bone of contention over Kennewick Man Kennewick Man is poised to tell his secrets. Almost nine years after the 9,300-year-old remains were found on the banks of the Columbia River and a fierce legal battle, federal courts agreed unequivocally scientists should be able to study Kennewick Man. However, U.S. Sen. John McCain has colluded with those who want to stifle the stories of similar old bones and the light they can shed on the earliest Americans and where they came from. The Arizona...

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 · Last updated 8:04 a.m. PT Tribes appeal Kennewick Man ruling, seek role in future finds THE ASSOCIATED PRESS KENNEWICK, Wash. -- Indian tribes that failed to block the scientific examination of the 9,400-year-old remains known as Kennewick Man are appealing a court ruling in hopes of gaining a role in future discoveries. The appeal of a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was brought Monday by the Nez Perce Tribe, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and Yakama Indian Nation, which claim Kennewick Man as an aboriginal ancestor. "It's a fundamental...

Associated Press KENANSVILLE — When workers digging up peat at a former central Florida sod farm unearthed human remains with their backhoe, they called the police. But this was a cold case that authorities were unlikely to solve. The bones found Thursday appeared to be those of a young man who died in his late teens or early 20s about 4,800 years ago, said Anthony Falsetti, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Florida. "It's quite significant because it ties into some earlier discoveries in the 1980s ... dating back to 8,000 years ago," Falsetti said Friday. "It...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - More than six years after the discovery of one of the oldest skeletons ever found in North America, a federal judge overturned a decision to give the bones to Indian tribes for reburial and ruled that scientists can keep them for more study. U.S. Magistrate John Jelderks said he reviewed 20,000 pages of documents before concluding that "nothing I have found in a careful examination of the administrative record" supported the government's decision to give the bones to the tribes. Scientific study of the ancient skeleton will benefit all people, including tribes, by offering clues to...

Tribes, archaeologists at odds over prehistoric cemetery By John W. Gonzalez HOUSTON CHRONICLE Monday, July 28, 2003 VICTORIA -- Prehistoric human remains and artifacts discovered in one of the continent's oldest known cemeteries will undergo extensive analysis, despite complaints of grave desecration from several American Indian tribes. Federal officials say they hope to minimize destructive tests on the human bones and promptly rebury them when studies are complete, but tribes say they are considering legal action to halt further analysis. "These are our ancestors," said Walter Celestine of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe in East Texas. After more than 18 months of...

WASHINGTON -- Scientists hoping to study the ancient skeleton known as Kennewick Man are protesting a bill by Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell that they say could block their efforts. A two-word amendment would change an Indian graves-protection law to allow federally recognized tribes to claim ancient remains even if they cannot prove a link to a current tribe. Scientists say the bill, if enacted, could have the effect of overturning a federal appeals court ruling that allowed them to study the 9,300-year- old bones.

Scientists wait to examine Kennewick Man August 08 2004 at 04:58PM By Tomas Alex Tizon For a few days last week, the top forensic anthropologists in the United States thought they were finally going to get their chance to study Kennewick Man. The eight-year legal battle over the 9 300-year-old bones, one of the oldest skeletons found in North America, appeared finished after five northwest Indian tribes decided not to pursue their case to the US supreme court. The tribes claimed that Kennewick Man was an ancestor and should not be desecrated by scientific study. Two courts ruled in favour...

<p>Eight anthropologists who want to study an ancient skeleton must want until a federal court has heard an appeal of the case by four Northwest tribes that consider the bones sacred.</p> <p>The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision, made last week, prevents any study of the 9,300-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man, which scientists have sought to examine since 1996.</p>

With both sides clashing over the definition of "Native American," an appeals court heard arguments Wednesday on whether a 9,300-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man belongs to scientists or Indian tribes. The Interior Department has been fighting with scientists over control of the bones since they were discovered in 1996 along the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Wash. Anthropologists want to do research on the skeleton. But then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt ruled three years ago the bones should be handed over to the tribes for reburial. Last October, U.S. Magistrate John Jelderks overturned Babbitt and approved research on...

Tribes fail to halt study of ancient skeleton 01/09/03 RICHARD L. HILL Four Northwest tribes lost another round in federal court Wednesday in their effort to halt a scientific study of the ancient skeleton called Kennewick Man.U.S. Magistrate John Jelderks in Portland rejected the tribes' request to delay the study until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals can hear the legal dispute. In August, Jelderks ruled that eight anthropologists who sued the federal government could proceed to study the 9,300-year-old remains. The Nez Perce, Umatilla, Colville and Yakama tribes appealed his decision and later asked Jelderks to delay the...

As elusive as the Cheshire Cat, the first people to arrive in the Americas have tended to appear and vanish with each new twist in the archaeological record. The latest disappearing act may be taking place on page 501, where new evidence, some claim, casts another shadow over a once-cherished idea: that Asian big-game hunters crossed the Bering Land Bridge to give rise to the Clovis people, who were considered the first Americans. New dates show that a crucial Siberian site, thought to be a way station along the Bering road, wasn't occupied until after the Clovis had begun killing...

New wrangle over Kennewick bones By Paul Rincon BBC News Online science staff The remains could reveal secrets of the settlement of the Americas The legal battle over the ancient bones of Kennewick Man has been won by the scientists, but they now face a new wrangle over access to the remains. The 9,300-year-old skeleton is among the most complete specimens of its period known from the Americas. Four Native American tribes that sought to re-bury the bones have announced they will not be taking their fight to the US Supreme Court. But they still regard the skeleton as an...

Scientists Win New Battle Over Skeleton Tue Apr 20, 7:34 AM ET PORTLAND, Ore. - Anthropologists seeking to study the ancient Kennewick Man skeleton scored another victory when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request by four Northwest tribes for a rehearing in the lengthy dispute. Tribal lawyers sought to have the case reheard by the full court after a three-judge panel ruled in February that the tribes had no right to the 9,300-year-old remains under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. A brief order issued Monday by the court denied the request from the...

Invasion of the Kennewick Men By Jackson Kuhl After almost eight years of labyrinthine litigation the case of Kennewick Man has ended with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and archaeological science is the winner -- for now. In a February 4 decision, the Ninth upheld the district court ruling stating that since no relationship could be established between modern American Indians and Kennewick Man -- physically, contextually, or otherwise -- he is not a Native American as defined under NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, thus NAGPRA isn't applicable. The Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) therefore...

Kennewick man ruling - politics or science? 10:30 14 February 04 Native Americans called him "The Ancient One", while anthropologists speculated he could reveal who first settled the Americas. Then, for over seven years, the skeleton of Kennewick Man became the subject of a court battle between the two parties, crystallising the debate over who should lay claim to ancient human remains and artefacts. Last week, a federal appeals court finally granted scientists the right to study the 9200-year-old bones, against the wishes of a group of native American tribes, including the Nez Perce tribe of Idaho and those of...

Kennewick Man speaks Kennewick Man has held onto his secrets for more than 9,000 years and now, finally, scientists will get a chance to be his voice. This week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals pushed the truths resting within the bones at the Burke Museum closer to the light with its decision that scientists can study them. The appeals court affirmed a lower-court decision that the Interior Department erred in its decision to give the bones to the Native American tribes that claim them as those of an ancestor. The government might appeal to the Supreme Court. But the...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Denying a request by American Indian tribes who sought an immediate burial, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Wednesday that scientists should be allowed to continue testing on a 9,000-year-old skeleton. "It's terrific," said Robson Bonnichsen director of Texas A&M University's Center for the Study of the First Americans and a plaintiff in the case. "The court has upheld the principle for scientific study of very early human remains." The legal battle pitting Bonnichsen and seven other scientists against the U.S. government and Indian tribes dates back to 1996, after two teenagers discovered a skeleton near...

RICHLAND - Benton County and Kennewick police have issued an Amber alert for a missing 5-year-old girl. Police say she may have been abducted about 8 p.m. Tuesday from her home in Kennewick. Police chief Marc Harden of Kennewick says the girl was playing in a bedroom, came out and asked her mother if she could go to the store with her grandmother's boyfriend. The boyfriend returned and the mother asked where the daughter was. The chief says the boyfriend said the little girl was not with him. Maynard says investigators have ruled out a custody dispute. They have...

<p>Eight anthropologists who want to study an ancient skeleton must want until a federal court has heard an appeal of the case by four Northwest tribes that consider the bones sacred.</p> <p>The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision, made last week, prevents any study of the 9,300-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man, which scientists have sought to examine since 1996.</p>

Tribes fail to halt study of ancient skeleton 01/09/03RICHARD L. HILL Four Northwest tribes lost another round in federal court Wednesday in their effort to halt a scientific study of the ancient skeleton called Kennewick Man. U.S. Magistrate John Jelderks in Portland rejected the tribes' request to delay the study until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals can hear the legal dispute. In August, Jelderks ruled that eight anthropologists who sued the federal government could proceed to study the 9,300-year-old remains. The Nez Perce, Umatilla, Colville and Yakama tribes appealed his decision and later asked Jelderks to delay...

Kennewick Man saga lives on This story was published 6/17/02 By Mike Lee Herald staff writer With the fate of the ancient bones found in Kennewick six years ago remaining in legal limbo, Peter Lampson has decided to take action. It's been a year, and the judge still hasn't issued a public pronouncement about the future of Kennewick Man. But the 17-year-old Lampson isn't waiting for the ruling to make his mark. In one of a handful of developments related to the once high-profile case, Lampson is erecting a sign in Columbia Park to commemorate Kennewick's world-famous former resident, who...