Kennewick Man appears to have died from the hit of an arrow and, 9300 years later, he continues to be the target of controversy. In 1998 we reported a story about the Kennewick Man, a 9300 year old man whose remains were discovered on the bans of a river in Kennewick, Washington. At the time we reported the story, the US. government was taking the unusual position of supporting a group of Native American tribesmen who demanded that the remains be buried immediately, without any opportunity to study the bones and other artifacts for archaeological data. The government has traditionally been unsupportive in attempts by Native American to save their graves and artifacts from plundering by museums, universities and grave robbers, despite the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which strictly prohibits the exploitation of ancestral remains. The government actions surrounding Kennewick Man were especially surprising since the cursory investigation revealed that the remains were likely NOT those of an American Indian, despite the age. Following our 1998 story, the US. government was pressured by scientists from around the globe and the remains of Kennewick Man were exhumed once again from their hasty burial and placed in storage while the issue was reviewed. For nearly two and a half years now, scientists have been attempting to be allowed to perform a thorough examination of the remains, including DNA analysis, to determine the racial origins of this very early American. The response to these requests has been lacking. "It's almost as if they [the government] are afraid of what we will discover," remarked one researcher close to the case. "It seems that whenever the issue is about this little known era in history [the millennia immediately following the last ice age] the governmental bureaucracy attempts to scuttle our attempts at finding the truth." On September 14th of this year, US. Magistrate John Jelderks will hear oral arguments in Portland by federal attorneys and lawyers for eight anthropologists who have sued in an effort to study the ancient skeleton. The anthropologists sued the federal government in October 1996 after the US. Army Corps of Engineers indicated it would hand the remains over to a coalition of five Northwest tribes for burial without allowing a scientific study. In June 1997, Jelderks ordered the corps to reassess the case and make a new decision. He put the lawsuit on hold, along with a similar one filed by a religious group known as the Asatru Folk Assembly. Nine months later, the corps turned the decision-making process over to the US. Department of the Interior. Heating up the controversy is a study published in Science, Vol. 280, 24 April 1998 in which researchers traced a segment of DNA in various racial and geographic populations, to determine relationship and migration histories. The segment of DNA is called "Lineage X." The "Lineage X" markers and possible source populations have been studied by Emory researchers Michael Brown and Douglas Wallace, and Antonio Torroni of the University of Rome and Hans-Jurgen Bandelt of the University of Hamburg. Lineage X, a site of genetic variation, is found in mitochondria DNA (MtDNA) and thus is passed only through the maternal line. It is one of five markers or haplogroups in MtDNA now identified in Native American, of which the other four (A-D) are shared by Asians and Amerinds, in accordance with widely accepted theories of their ancient links. The fifth genetic marker, Lineage X, occurs at low frequencies in both modern and ancient remains of Native Americans and in some European and Near Eastern groups including Italians, Spaniards, Finns, Israelis, Turks, and Bulgarians. But Lineage X does not occur in any Asian population, including those of Tibet, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, or Northeast Asia. Brown and his coworkers had expected to find it in Asia like the other four Native American markers, and are now pressed to account for the gap in their data. One possible scenario that fits well with the Kennewick Man finding is that a group of Caucasians migrated from Europe to North America before 9000 years ago. Researchers note that, besides Kennewick Man, another anomalous early American skeleton is that of the Spirit Cave Mummy from Nevada, which also combines features of Caucasoid and Mongoloid physiques. Further study of the global distribution of Lineage X should help clarify this intriguing new aspect of early American migrations. See ViewZone's original story on the background of the Kennewick Man's discovery. New Discoveries! UPDATE: September 10th, 1999 With permission finally, but reluctantly, granted by authorities, two tiny samples have been taken from the collection of bones to be used for radiocarbon dating to determine Kennewick Man's age. This somewhat odd permission was granted despite the previous tests which were conducted three years ago and which indicated the bones were more than 9,000 years old. Researchers were hoping that they would have been allowed to extract DNA samples and put to rest the arguments about the racial origins, but this will have to wait, again, as the political battle over the early inhabitants of North America are waged once more. Researchers Wednesday extracted two 10-gram samples, about one-third of an ounce each, from the bones, which have been stored at the Burke Museum in Seattle. The samples will be hand-carried to laboratories in Miami, Tucson, Ariz., and Riverside, Calif., for accelerator mass spectrometry testing. As expected, five Native American tribes, who have claimed Kennewick Man as an ancestor, object to the tests as a desecration. "We recognize and sincerely regret that destruction of any amount of bone is offensive to some religious and traditional tribal beliefs," said Francis McManamon, chief archaeologist for the U.S. Department of the Interior, which is overseeing the process. "However, to reasonably answer the question of whether Kennewick Man is Native American for the purposes of NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act), and to undertake any further studies if he is, it is vitally important to know whether these bones are 80 years old or 800 years old or 8,000 years old." Rather than keeping an open mind, The Interior Department will automatically declare the remains as Native American under federal law if the bones are more than 500 years old. This will then give weight to Native American protests against further testing and forever prevent DNA tests which could reveal the true racial ethnicity of early American inhabitants. Laboratory dating results are expected in November. The only remaining chance to perform DNA tests will come when the Interior Department faces it's next task which will be to attempt to determine which of the five contending Native American tribes can rightfully claim the remains. But this decision still could be made without DNA tests. The final ownership will likely be disputed in Federal Court. With mounting evidence that Native American tribes were not the only early inhabitants of North America, and with recent DNA markers that seem to illustrate a European -- NOT Asian -- origin for many Native American races, the significance of learning Kennewick Man's ethnicity cannot be overstated. Once his remains are given to tribal authorities and buried, an important clue to our early human history will be lost forever.

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