麻豆传媒

KENNEWICK Man was a Native American, say government scientists in the US. The
9300-year-old skeleton, found in a Washington riverbed in 1996, has been the
subject of a tug-of-war between scientists eager to examine it and American
Indian groups who want the bones reburied. The decision on his origins tilts the
balance in favour of the American Indian tribes in the battle for custody of his
remains.

According to the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,
any Native American remains or artefacts that can be traced to a modern tribe
must be repatriated. By law, any remains older than Columbus are Native
American. Unwilling to rely on carbon dating in 1996 that put the age of the
bones at 9300 years, the Department of the Interior commissioned its own study.
Last week, the department confirmed the date.

But Kennewick Man鈥檚 future still hinges on which modern tribe are his
descendants. The department has to decide by March, but it won鈥檛 be easy, since
no artefacts other than an arrowhead lodged in his hip were found with the body.
The remains could be judged 鈥渃ulturally unidentified鈥�. But the rules about who
gets custody in that case have not yet been written, says Laura Phillips,
collections manager at the Burke Museum in Seattle, which currently houses the
bones. 鈥淚f it comes to that, they will just sit in limbo.鈥�

Returning Kennewick Man to a tribe will not necessarily halt study of the
skeleton, says Jerome Rose of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Rose
concluded that the skull鈥檚 features closely resembled Japan鈥檚 Ainu people
(麻豆传媒, 23 October 1999, p 5).
He says many tribes hire
archaeologists and sponsor their own research. And further research may be
essential to find out if Kennewick Man has any link with modern tribes. 鈥淭he
only way to answer that question is with DNA analysis,鈥� says Rose.