{"id":7986,"date":"2016-04-28T12:03:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T18:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7986"},"modified":"2016-04-28T20:41:44","modified_gmt":"2016-04-29T02:41:44","slug":"not-ainu-or-polynesian-scientists-say-of-kennewick-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7986","title":{"rendered":"Not Ainu or Polynesian, Scientists Say of Kennewick Man"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"One

One reconstruction gave him a thick beard (Int. Business Times).<\/p><\/div>\n

Kennewick Man, the roughly 9,000-year-old skeleton found twenty years in Washington state was the subject of a long court battle between physical anthropologists and archaeologists who wanted to study him and contemporary tribes who wanted to claim him under NAGPRA rules.<\/a><\/p>\n

Suspiciously, the Corps of Engineers dumped rock and gravel all over the area where his skeleton washed out along the Columbia River, making it impossible to say if he was buried with anyone else.<\/p>\n

Some scientists described the skull as “Caucasoid” \u2014 which is not the same as “Caucasian” in a racial sense, but which could indicate common ancestry with today’s Polynesians or perhaps the ancient Ainu people of Japan.<\/a> That did not stop other people from claiming a European origin for him.<\/p>\n

Current study says no:<\/a><\/p>\n

The breakthrough in confirming the ancestry of the skeleton after years of research came with DNA testing, which enabled scientists to compare DNA in an ancient finger bone from Kennewick Man with saliva samples from Colville tribal members, where genetic similarities were confirmed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whoever he was, he lived hard, active life and might have gone down fighting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Part of a spear had remained lodged in Kennewick\u2019s right hip bone at a 77-degree angle, but, remarkably, the spear did not cause his death. The cause of his demise remains a mystery. What is known is that this athletic, rugged hunter suffered many physical traumas before finally expiring in his mid-to-late 30s. [Other estimates put him in his forties\u2014CSC]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now the skeleton goes to a coalition of local tribes who plan to rebury it near where it was found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kennewick Man, the roughly 9,000-year-old skeleton found twenty years in Washington state was the subject of a long court battle between physical anthropologists and archaeologists who wanted to study him and contemporary tribes who wanted to claim him under NAGPRA rules. Suspiciously, the Corps of Engineers dumped rock and gravel all over the area where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,208],"class_list":["post-7986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-indian-tribes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-24O","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":111,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=111","url_meta":{"origin":7986,"position":0},"title":"Kennewick Man Update","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The saga of Kennewick Man, the 9,200-year-old Caucasoid (which is not the same as \"Caucasian\"!) skeleton found in Washington state in 1996, continues. An federal appeals court panel has ruled in favor of reseachers who want to continue to study his remains, now stored at the University of Washington, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":73,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=73","url_meta":{"origin":7986,"position":1},"title":"Dem Bones","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 2, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"American archaeologists have had more a decade's experience with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). It has also been misapplied, I believe, as in the case of Kennewick Man. Although that skeleton may have been proto-Polynesian rather than European, Steve McNallen of the Asatru Folk Assembly filed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":260,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=260","url_meta":{"origin":7986,"position":2},"title":"\"Pagan\" predecessors The BBC picks\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 9, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Pagan\" predecessors The BBC picks up on the growing evidence for multiple ancient migrations into the Americas with this story. Meanwhile, Inappropriate Response remains a good place to keep up with the \"Caucasoid\" Kennewick Man squabble. For some American Indian political leaders, this issue has a line-in-the-sand quality. They apparently\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":97,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=97","url_meta":{"origin":7986,"position":3},"title":"An interested bystander . .\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"An interested bystander . . . is all that I am in the Kennewick Man case, but I enjoyed this post from Moira Breen's Inappropriate Reponse blog. You might like this post as well on the whole sacred-lands issue. British Pagans, for instance, continue to pester English Heritage, etc., about\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4651,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4651","url_meta":{"origin":7986,"position":4},"title":"Kennewick Man Was Buff","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"How buff? Five foot-seven,\u00a0 170 pounds, and all muscle, according to recent skeletal analysis. He also had eaten a lot of seal meat. (Hat tip to Peculiar.)","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":485,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=485","url_meta":{"origin":7986,"position":5},"title":"Church, state, and sacred sitesNo\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 8, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Church, state, and sacred sitesNo insightful comment here, just a link to a Christian Science Monitor piece on the difficulties of applying law to sacred sites. Kennewick Man gets a mention too. (Remember, boys and girls, \"Caucasian\" is not the same as \"Caucasoid.\" Even the CSM fumbles that term.)","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7986"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7994,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions\/7994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}