Kennewick Man - Scientific Significance

Scientific Significance

The remains had been scattered in the reservoir due to erosion. Following delivery of the cranium by the coroner, they were examined by archaeologist James Chatters. After ten visits to the site, Chatters had managed to collect 350 bones and pieces of bone, which with the skull completed almost an entire skeleton. The cranium was fully intact with all the teeth that had been present at the time of death. All major bones were found, except the sternum and a few bones of the hands and feet. The remains were determined to be those of "a male of late middle age (40-55 years), and tall (170 to 176 cm, 5'7" to 5'9"), slender build". Many of the bones were broken into several pieces. At the University of California at Riverside, a small bone fragment was subjected to radiocarbon dating. This fixed the age of the skeleton at approximately 9,300 years (8,400 uncalibrated "radiocarbon years"), not the nineteenth century, as had originally been assumed. After studying the bones, Chatters concluded they belonged to a Caucasoid male about 68 inches (173 cm) tall who had died in his mid fifties.

Chatters found that bone had partially grown around a 79 mm (3.1 in) stone projectile lodged in the ilium, part of the pelvic bone. On x-ray, nothing appeared. Chatters put the bone through a CT scan, and it was discovered the projectile was made from a siliceous gray stone that was found to have igneous (intrusive volcanic) origins. The projectile was leaf-shaped, long, broad and had serrated edges, all fitting the definition of a Cascade point. This type of point is a feature of the Cascade phase, which occurred roughly 7,500 to 12,000 years ago.

To further investigate the mystery of the Kennewick man and determine whether the skeleton belonged to the Umatilla Native American tribe, an extraction of DNA was analyzed, and according to the report of the scientists doing the DNA analysis: "available technology and protocols do not allow the analysis of ancient DNA from these remains."

Anthropologist Joseph Powell of the University of New Mexico was also allowed to examine the remains and his conclusions were contradictory. Powell used craniometric data obtained by anthropologist William White Howells of Harvard University and anthropologist Tsunehiko Hanihara (Japanese:埴原恒彦) of Saga University that had the advantage of including data drawn from Asian and North American populations. Powell said that Kennewick Man was not European but most resembled the Ainu and Polynesians. Powell said that the Ainu descend from the Jōmon people who are an East Asian population with "closest biological affinity with south-east Asians rather than western Eurasian peoples". Furthermore, Powell said that dental analysis showed the skull had a 94 percent chance of being a Sundadont group like the Ainu and Polynesians and only a 48 percent chance of being a Sinodont group like that of North Asia. Powell said analysis of the skull showed it to be "unlike American Indians and Europeans". Powell concluded that Kennewick man "is clearly not a Caucasoid unless Ainu and Polynesians are considered Caucasoid."

Chatters et al. conducted a graphic comparison, including size, of Kennewick Man to 18 modern populations and showed Kennewick Man was most closely related to the Ainu. However, when size was excluded as a factor, no association to any population was established. Chatters said that anthropologist C. Loring Brace classified Ainu and Polynesians as a single craniofacial Jomon-Pacific cluster and Chatters said "Polynesians have craniofacial similarities to Asian, Australian and European peoples".

In a 2000 publication about Kennewick Man, anthropologist Glynn Custred of California State University East Bay said expert on Asian populations physical anthropologist C. Loring Brace of University of Michigan believed people related to the Jomon came before the modern Indian and that "two varieties of American Indian arose from the former being absorbed by the latter with the Plains Indian resembling the older group. Brace himself stated in a 2006 interview with the Tri-City Herald that his analysis of the skeleton indicated Kennewick Man was related to the Ainu.

The biological diversity among ancient skulls in the Americas has further complicated attempts to establish how closely Kennewick Man is related to any modern Native American tribes. Skulls older than 8,000 years old have been found to possess greater physical diversity than do those of modern Native Americans. This range implies that there was a genetic shift in populations about 8,000 years ago. The heterogeneity of these early people shows that genetic drift had already occurred, meaning the racial type represented by Kennewick Man had been in existence for a considerable period of time.

The discovery of Kennewick Man, along with other ancient skeletons, has furthered scientific debate over the exact origin and history of early Native American people. One hypothesis holds that a single wave of migration occurred, consisting of hunters and gatherers following large herds of game, which wandered across the Bering land bridge around 12,000 years ago. Other hypotheses contend that there were numerous waves of migration to the Americas. The apparent diversity of ancient skeletal remains, which may include traits not typically associated with modern Native Americans, has been used as evidence to support these rival hypotheses. A 2008 study on the genetics of modern Native American populations suggests that the 86 samples taken are descendants of a single migration that spread out along a coastal route prior to the Clovis era.