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takyon writes:

The 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man skeleton is set to be reburied after decades of research and wrangling:

Once the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had control over the Columbia River property, caught wind of the bones' ancient age, the agency demanded the remains. A local tribe, the Umatilla, had claimed the Kennewick Man as an ancestor; the Native American group wanted to lay the skeleton to rest according to custom. Chatters, who had teamed up with paleoanthropologists like the Smithsonian Institute's renowned bone expert Douglas Owsley, resisted.

Thus began a debate that would last for 20 years. In one corner were the scientists, who over the years have wanted to sequence the Kennewick Man's DNA and scrape his molars to see what he ate. Burial without first letting scientists analyze the bones, paleontologist Thomas Stafford told the Denver Post in 1997, "would be like burning the great library of Alexandria."

In the other corner was a coalition of five Native American groups — the Nez Perce, Yakama, Wanapum and Colville tribes, along with the Umatilla, who refer to the Kennewick Man as the Ancient One. Their legal footing, they say, is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — legislation enacted in 1990 as a way to return cultural items kept by federal agencies and museum collections.

A genetic test on the remains found that the Kennewick Man is closely related to Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest and not the ancient Japanese Ainu tribe as some anthropologists had argued in court. The Army Corps of Engineers announced on Wednesday that it would coordinate with the coalition of Native American tribes to bury the remains.

Also at Reuters.

Previously: DNA Testing Confirms Kennewick Man's Ties to Native Americans

Original Submission

1. "takyon" - https://soylentnews.org/~takyon/
2. "Kennewick Man" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man
3. "set to be reburied" - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/28/after-20-years-in-legal-limbo-9000-year-old-kennewick-man-set-to-receive-native-american-burial/
4. "Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act" - https://www.nps.gov/nagpra/PUBLIC/INDEX.HTM
5. "Reuters" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-washington-kennewick-idUSKCN0XQ2BX
6. "DNA Testing Confirms Kennewick Man's Ties to Native Americans" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/06/19/115229
7. "Original Submission" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=13458

printed from SoylentNews, 9,000-Year-Old Kennewick Man Set to Receive Burial on 2024-05-01 08:09:37