Revelations of the Kennewick man

Revelations of the Kennewick man

The Kennewick man discovery occurred in 1996 by a couple of college students from Washington along the Colorado River. It is one of the most well preserved archeological findings ever collected. The skeletal remains raised a lot of controversy among the archeological professionals and the general public as to what the Kennewick man represents. The controversy revolved around the federal government which attempted to settle the matter out of court and the Native American Community which raised objections to such attempts. Such controversies eventually affected the analysis of the remains by the scientist and any attempts to carry out scientific studies on the skeleton have been met with an equal measure of contempt and curiosity from the general public.

Carbon dating analysis carried out on the specimen estimate that the Kennewick man is about 9000 years old which according to archaeologist presents a new set of controversy since it was widely believed that there were no humans in North America during that period of time. Furthermore, the Native Americans claimed that the Kennewick man was one of their ancestors and they went ahead to lay claim of the remains for proper burial rituals. However, groups representing anthropologist claimed that the features of the skeletal remains did not have any similarities to any local tribes and they even went ahead to win a legal battle to study the remains. Interestingly, genetic analysis of the remains revealed that the Kennewick man’s DNA was more closely to the related to the modern Native American as compared to other ethnic groups.

One of the initial set of controversies was concerning the age and the condition of the remains. The specimen was one of the best preserved in comparison to its age and scientist were initially skeptical about the age of the specimen until carbon dating confirmed the age of the remains (Smithsonian museum, 2014). North American tribes fondly termed the Kennewick man as the “ancient one” and they went ahead to ask the government to grant them the rights to bury the skeletal remains in accordance with laws that seek to protect the ancient American tribes and their grave sites. This, in turn, was countered by the scientist who claimed that the specimen’s features more closely resembled the Europeans and hence they had the right to retrieve and study the remains.  The scientists won the legal battle in 2004 and went ahead to begin scientific studies on the specimens. Another twist to the controversy came after initial anatomical studies revealed that although the Kennewick man had similar features to the Europeans, he also had some features in common with some ethnic groups such as the Polynesians and the Ainu of Japan. However, genetic analysis of the remains revealed that the remains belonged to the Native American ancestry.

The root cause of the Kennewick man mystery is that people want to find out which race he belongs to. Although genetic analysis points towards Native American ancestry of the remains, there are no conclusive findings to concisely place the Kennewick man in the Native American race and studies have left the issue open for further analysis. The specimen is therefore not truly of Native American origin nor is it completely of European origin. Therefore the specimen does not fit completely in any race and until the race of the Kennewick man is concisely determined there cannot be any meaningful conclusions on the archeological importance of the remains. The specimen is currently held at a museum in Washington which is considered a neutral ground. The specimen is not on display with access to it being strictly controlled by the US Army Engineers corps.

References

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/kennewickedusson.commanedusson.comfinallyedusson.comfreededusson.comshareedusson.comhisedusson.comsecrets