- SEATTLE (AP) - A six-member panel of scientists began an examination
Thursday of Kennewick Man, considered the oldest and most complete human
skeleton found in the Northwest and one of the oldest in North America.
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- The team of anthropologists and archaeologists
will try to determine the ancestry of the brittle, 9,300-year-old set of
bones.
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- "Today really does mark an important
achievement, the reaching of an important milestone, as we begin to establish
a scientific baseline for answering some of the questions that relate to
these remains," said team leader Francis McManamon, chief archaeologist
for the National Park Service.
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- The skeleton, which contains all major
bones except the sternum, was found dispersed over a 300-square-yard area
in Kennewick's Columbia Park in July 1996.
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- Scientists will first focus on whether
the bones are of Indian origin as defined by the 1990 Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act, McManamon said.
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- If they are, the Department of the Interior,
which is handling the study, will then decide if there is a modern day
tribe to which the remains ought to be given.
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- Five Northwest tribes have claimed the
remains as an ancestor and wish to rebury the bones. The U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, which took custody of the bones from the Benton County sheriff's
office, had planned to turn them over to tribal representatives under the
repatriation act.
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- Scientists later sued in federal court
for the right to further study Kennewick Man because he reportedly has
non-Indian features.
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- Michael Trimble, the head curator for
the Corps of Engineers, said the bones, more than 350 pieces, were filled
with water and held together with sediment when they were found.
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- The panel over five days will analyze
those soil samples to see if they can find any links to dated soil layers
in the terrace near the discovery site.
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- Scientists also will measure the shape
and width of the skeleton's face, its dental remains and a stone point
embedded in the pelvic bone, said team member Joseph Powell, a physical
anthropologist from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
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