Testing of Kennewick Bones Still Under Dispute

Y A K I M A, Wash., Oct. 15, 2001 -- The U.S. Department of the Interior is expected to announce that it will accelerate efforts to determine whether the collection of bones known as Kennewick Man can be linked to any existing Indian tribes.

That announcement was planned today.

Initially, the Interior Department had planned to wait for results of radiocarbon testing on the bones, believed to be more than 9,000 years old, before proceeding with “cultural affiliation” studies, which were expected to take two or three years and ultimately could determine who gets custody of Kennewick Man.

But in an effort to comply with a recent court order by U.S. Magistrate Judge John Jelderks in Portland, Ore., the agency is now planning to begin the studies before Kennewick Man’s age is determined for certain and complete them by next spring.

Kennewick Man, a collection of 350 bones, is one of the oldest and most complete skeletons found in North America. He is currently stored at the Burke Museum in Seattle.

Looking For Clues

The Interior Department also was preparing to post on its Web site new details on the findings so far about Kennewick Man. Chief archaeologist Francis McManamon has said the collection could provide important clues as to the manner in which North America was populated.

An increasing number of scientists now believe that the Americas’ first immigrants may have come by boat more than 12,000 years ago, rather than crossing a land bridge across the Bering Sea.

Kennewick Man attracted international attention when one anthropologist noted that the features of the skull bore little resemblance to modern Indian tribes.

Study since then suggests that his skull is most similar to those populations from the South Pacific, Polynesia and the Ainu, an ancient tribe in northern Japan.

The disposition of the bones has been hotly contested by a group of Northwest Indian tribes, who claim him as an ancestor and want to bury the bones, and eight prominent anthropologists, who have sued for the right to study Kennewick Man.

The Asatru Folk Assembly, a Nevada City, Calif.-based group that practices a Viking-era pagan religion, also claims Kennewick Man as a possible ancestor and has been in court seeking further testing of the bones to determine their origin.

Politicking Goes On

Last month, Jelderks gave the federal government a May 24 deadline to determine whether it would allow the scientists to study Kennewick Man. If not, the case could proceed to trial.

Paula Barran, a lawyer representing the plaintiff scientists, has repeatedly criticized the Interior Department for delays and was skeptical of the agency’s announcement.

“I alternate between total despair that the government is ever going to do anything right, and amusement. This is more amusement than anything else,” she said Thursday.

The Interior Department has said radiocarbon dating results on the remains will be available in November. If the bones are proved to be more than about 500 years old, then they would be considered Indian under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

The subsequent step under federal law is to determine through study whether the bones can be affiliated with any modern-day tribes, which would be necessary to validate the five Northwest tribes’ claim to the bones.

The Interior Department will look at the archaeology, geography, ethnography, biology and history of tribes near the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers.

DNA Testing a Possibility

The Interior Department is also expected to consider DNA testing of the bones, which both the anthropologists and the Asatru are eager to have conducted as the best way to determine Kennewick Man’s origins.

Jelderks did not require DNA testing in his September order, but wrote “any decision that did not include DNA analysis would probably be challenged as arbitrary and capricious.”

The Indian tribes oppose DNA testing as a desecration of sacred remains and as unnecessary based on their own traditions.