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Scientists protest efforts to give Indian tribes control over ancient man's remains The Associated PressPublished: November 30, 2007 WASHINGTON: Scientists hoping to study the ancient skeleton known as Kennewick Man are protesting efforts on two fronts that they say could block them from examining one of the oldest and most complete set of bones ever found in North America. For a third time in four years, the scientists are opposing a bill in the U.S. Senate that would allow federally recognized American Indian tribes to claim ancient remains even if they cannot prove a link to a current tribe. They...

Next Kennewick Man will need protection Published Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 The court decision to allow scientists to study the ancient skeleton known as Kennewick Man has aided humankind's quest for knowledge. Unfortunately, it also spawned a congressional effort to change federal law to keep science from learning anything about the next Kennewick Man. U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings is trying to thwart the move with proposed legislation of his own. Good for him. With so many unanswered questions about man's future, we've never had a greater need to understand our past. The Kennewick Man ruling, upheld by the 9th Circuit...

Last week, Hillary Clinton condemned the Bush administration’s “open season on open inquiry” and promised to end its “war on science.” She might have chosen a better target, closer to home: the Senate, where the Indian Affairs Committee has just approved a two-word change to federal law that could render the scientific study of pre-Columbian history in the United States virtually impossible. One of the first casualties of the revision would be Kennewick Man — the popular name for a set of 9,300-year-old bones found along the Columbia River near Kennewick, Wash., in 1996. Human remains of that age are...

Senate bill could untie Kennewick Man bones Published Thursday, October 4th, 2007 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer A Senate committee has approved a bill that could clear the way for Native Americans to claim the ancient bones of Kennewick Man. This is the third time the change has been proposed to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It would ensure federally recognized tribes could claim ancient remains even if a direct link to a tribe can't be proven. Tribes have pushed for a change to the law since the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2004...

Female bones excavated from the bubbling asphalt in 1914 used to be mounted in the museum, alongside a life-sized dummy purporting to resemble the woman to whom the bones had belonged. The exhibit was called La Brea Woman. La Brea means "the tar" in Spanish. La Brea Woman probably died from injuries inflicted by a blunt instrument: a piece of bone is missing from the top of her skull... Scientists believe that La Brea Woman died with her dog by her side, since canine bones were found near her remains. La Brea Woman is 9,000 years old, has a hole...

Anthropologists Back Native American Claims The case of Kennewick Man – or the Ancient One – as Native Americans refer to him, dragged through the courts for years before Judge John Jelderks found that he could not be defined Native American under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. A recent case regarding repatriation of even older remains and artifacts from Spirit Cave, Nev., suggests that the Kennewick Man case should be used as a legal precedent and that the remains of Spirit Cave Man are not Native American. Four University of New Mexico anthropologists have written an article...

The First Americans By Sharon Begley and Andrew Murr Newsweek, April 26, 1999 New digs and old bones reveal an ancient land that was a mosaic of peoples—including Asians and Europeans. Now a debate rages: who got here first? 'Skull wars:' Facial reconstruction of the 'Spirit Cave Man,' based on bones found in Spirit Cave, Churchill County, Nevada (David Barry--Courtesy Nevada State Museum; facial reconstruction by Sharon Long) As he sat down to his last meal amid the cattails and sedges on the shore of the ancient lake, the frail man grimaced in agony. A fracture at his left temple...

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. Nicknamed "Stickman" for the mythical beings some tribes believe once inhabited the Columbia plateau,...

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,...

(excerpt) One of the big unanswered questions was whether Kennewick Man was Caucasian. The answer, it turns out, is probably no. He's more likely Polynesian or closer to Ainu, an ethnic group that is now found only in northern Japan but in prehistoric times lived throughout coastal areas of eastern Asia, say researchers http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/05/time.first.americans/index.html

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,...

Scientists plan to disclose their findings about Kennewick Man on Thursday in Seattle, nearly a decade after the discovery of the 9,000-year-old skeleton that attracted worldwide interest and sparked a lengthy legal fight. "Kennewick's story is finally going to get told," said Cleone Hawkinson, president of Friends of America's Past. Hawkinson has been working for years to ensure Kennewick Man's bones would be studied by the top scientists in the country. Kennewick Man's bones are significant to scientists because they are considered one of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found. Scientists have theorized he was about 45 years old...

Scientists hoping to study the ancient skeleton known as Kennewick Man are protesting legislation they say could block their efforts. They say a two-word amendment to a bill on American Indians would allow federally recognized tribes to claim ancient remains even if they cannot prove a link to a current tribe. Scientists fear the bill, if enacted, could end up overturning a federal appeals court ruling that allows them to study the 9,300-year-old bones. The skeleton was discovered in 1996 along the Columbia River near Kennewick, Wash., and has been the focus of a bitter nine-year fight. The scientists successfully...

The Politics of Dead 'Native Americans' By Jackson Kuhl On September 23, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colorado), head of the Committee on Indian Affairs, introduced bill S.2843, a laundry list of editorial fixes to various laws affecting Native American tribes around the country. Tacked on at the very end of S.2843, however, is a one-sentence "Amendment of Definition" to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act NAGPRA), the same law that was the fulcrum in the Kennewick Man case. Campbell's amendment seeks to add the words "or was" to the definition of "Native American" (Section 2(9)) so that it...

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...

Scientists can study the 9,300-year-old remains of the Kennewick Man, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today. The court upheld a decision last August by U.S. Magistrate Judge John Jelderks in Portland that the remains, which Northwest Indian tribes consider sacred, can be studied. The tribes wanted the bones, found on the north bank of the Columbia River in 1996 by teenagers going to a boat race, turned over to them for burial. The three-judge panel found that the remains do not fall under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and can be studied under the...

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...

Court battle resumes between tribes, scientists over ancient remainsWILLIAM MCCALL; The Associated Press PORTLAND - The definition of "Native American" is at stake in deciding whether the 9,300-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man belongs to scientists or Indian tribes, lawyers for both sides told a federal appeals court Wednesday. The Interior Department has fought with scientists since the bones were discovered in 1996 along the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick. A group of eight anthropologists who want to do research on the skeleton went to court to seek permission. But then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt ruled three years ago...

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...

LAST WORD ON KENNEWICK MAN? A court ruling on the controversial remains pleases archaeologist James Chatters. On August 30, Judge John Jelderks of the U.S. District Court of Oregon ruled against the government's 1996 decision that declared the 9,400-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man to be Native American, a classification which would require the remains to be turned over to a coalition of tribes for reburial. James Chatters, archaeologist and author of Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), identified the remains when they were found on the banks of Washington's Columbia River...

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...