Kennewick Man....

[Tikki]

Anyone here have an opinion on the controversy surrounding Kennewick Man?
NATIVE KENNEWICK MAN
JEAN LUC PICARD KENNEWICK MAN

http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/kennewick.html

Even more exciting were DNA results from the remains.
Brian Kemp, a doctoral student at the University of California, Davis, succeeded where others had failed by extracting genetic material from a tooth.
His first results were so "weird" he repeated the work several times.
Kemp compared the material to a database containing DNA sequences from more than 3,500 modern and prehistoric Native Americans. He found matches in several distinct locations, mostly along the Pacific coastline from California to Mexico, Ecuador and Chile.
"My gut feeling is that this is a signature of a coastal expansion of people," Kemp said — but it's not yet definitive proof. DNA matches in Illinois show that at least some of the caveman's ancestors traveled overland, as well.
It's also still unclear where the caveman's ancestors originated. His DNA sequence is of a type generally found in Asia, but the only exact match was a member of the Han ethnic group in eastern China.
from article....Old bones are telling a new tale: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002958195_oldbones28m.html?syndication=rss

Tikki

[Hand]

1. self delete--dumb post.

Should have read the article first (or the full OP for that matter). :dunce:

[semillama]

2. If there's one thing I hate

it's the use of the word "caveman" to describe prehistoric Native Americas.

[Tikki]

3. What the controversy really came....

down to is whether Kennewick Man who was carbon dated +/- 9000 years old
showed conclusively by means of his morphology to be an early caucasoid and thus belonged on laboratory shelves
or that he was of a Native people by virtue of his age and place of deposition and thereby should be buried in the custom of his
people.

Came all the way down to DNA research that seems to place him most similar to another grouping altogether, early Asian
(Eastern China) people such as the Han.

There are lots of heated arguments and expectations surrounding his discovery and existence.


Tikki

[semillama]

5. The real controversy is in how the Corps handled the issue in the beginning

They basically went out and destroyed the site so that no one can go and excavate the bank where the bones eroded out of.

[pscot]

6. Im generally sympathetic to native claims

but KM was such an interesting find it would have been a shame if the scientists hadn't gotten a chance to give hime a good going over. And his age made it hard to argue that he was anyone's tribal ancestor. Interesting times in American anthropology.

[Odin2005]

4. He looks like those Ainu people in northern Japan.

[Jed Dilligan]

7. Both sides are playing politics to some degree

He wasn't an early Norse explorer, as some have cast him, nor was he connected to any tribe that exists today. He is part of all our human heritage, and his remains should be studied (respectfully) and placed (respectfully) in a secular museum, for the edification of the general public, when the study is complete. Just my humble opinion...

[Cleita]

8. How strange. I got into a big cyber fight many years back

with a racist White Supremist who claimed Kennewick man was Caucasian. This was back before there was any definitive gene analysis. There was an article in one of the science magazines of that time about a decade ago that claimed he wasn't Caucasian but they couldn't trace him to any Native American tribe either yet. Too bad I lost contact with that bigoted A-hole. I would love to rub his nose in it. Of course nowadays, I don't engage much with ignorant bigots when I see they have closed minds. My peace of mind is too important to me.