- Tests to be carried out in the next few
days may shed light on the mystery of the Kennewick man.
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- Three years ago an apparently Caucasian
skeleton was found near Kennewick in the western United States - a discovery
that sparked a bitter clash between archaeologists and native Americans.
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- The scientists want to examine the bones
to look for clues to where the ancient traveller came from, but native
Americans consider this disrespectful to one of their ancestors and want
to re-bury the remains.
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- However the Kennewick Man skeleton prompts
a particularly awkward question - what was an apparently Caucasian man
doing in North America over 9,000 years ago?
-
- Conventional wisdom has it that Vikings
may have reached North America around 1,000 AD, but archaeologists hope
the remains would tell them more about the spread of humans across the
Americas.
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- Ancestor claim
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- But Native American people claimed the
man as an ancestor and sought possession of his remains under a law drawn
up to protect ancestral rights.
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- A group of scientists counter-sued, arguing,
amongst other things, that Kennewick Man's Caucasian features meant he
could not be a direct ancestor of modern native Americans.
-
- The increasingly heated debate has continued
ever since and now a district court has ordered the US Government to perform
new tests to decide Kennewick Man's true ancestry once and for all.
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- But the court has forbidden the use of
any DNA analysis or other destructive techniques to be used, and scientists
argue that without these tests, it will be impossible to decide Kennewick
Man's ancestry.
-
- If this is the case then the government
is prepared to allow invasive tests but only on approval from native American
groups, who have so far refused to give consent.
-
- It seems Kennewick Man is destined to
remain the centre of this ongoing clash between science and indigenous
cultures.
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