Ancient Encounters

American Archaeology Riveting. A strong case for continuing this research in the interest of our common humanity.

Auteur

James C. Chatters

Texte du rabat

A partial skeleton was discovered near Kennewick, Washington, in 1996. The author, an anthropologist, noticed the features of the skeleton were Caucasoid, yet had characteristics that appeared only in American Indian skeletons. It was also estimated at 9,500 years old. In this record of his experiences, Chatters offers a rare look at the collision of science, politics, federal law, and cultural traditions. of photos.

Résumé
In 1996, two young men found a skeleton along the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. "Kennewick Man," as he became known, was brought to forensic anthropologist Jim Chatters, who was astonished when tests revealed the skeleton to be nearly 9,500 years old, one of the oldest intact skeletons ever found in North America -- and one that bore little resemblance to modern Native Americans. So who was Kennewick Man, and where did he come from?
Chatters set off to find out, but his work on the skeleton was soon halted when local Native American groups claimed the skeleton as an ancestor under federal law, and demanded the right to rebury the remains. Agreeing with their claim, the U.S. government seized Kennewick Man and put him into federal storage, where he remains to this day. So began a harsh, politically charged conflict, with scientists, Native Americans, and government agencies fighting to decide the destiny of Kennewick Man.
While this battle raged, Chatters began a quest to understand the lives and origins of Kennewick Man and his contemporaries, a quest that took him across three continents and far back in time to learn the identity of these true First Americans. Ultimately, it led him to a sense of what it really means to be human.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1: The Stone Had Teeth

The call came early Sunday evening, July 28, 1996. On the line was Floyd Johnson, coroner of Benton County, Washington, for whom I serve as a forensic anthropologist from time to time.

"Hey buddy," he said, "I´ve got some bones for you to look at. Some kids were wading in the river at the boat races and found a skull. Have you got time to look at it?"

"Sure," I answered. "We´re just sitting around. Bring it on over."

It was not a long wait, but however short they are, these moments between hearing of a find and actually seeing it always fill me with anticipation. Old or recent, intact or deteriorated nearly beyond recognition, bones always have a story to tell. They chronicle early growth, life experience, death, and even what has happened to the body after death. Muscle ridges, wear and tear -- arthritis, bone growth along ligaments and tendons, and fractures -- record patterns of physical activity. Diseases and injury leave their mark in patterns of bone dissolution, atrophy, regrowth, and overgrowth. Cuts and bullet holes offer mute testimony to the manner of death. Then there are the all-important clues to identity -- height, sex, age, and facial structure. All in all, it´s a grand puzzle, and I love a good puzzle. But more than that, it´s an introduction to someone new, someone whose story I will come to know well.

Floyd arrived carrying a five-gallon plastic bucket containing a drawstring plastic bag from a clothing store (police evidence containers are a constant source of wonder and amusement), and we sat down on the front porch. Opening the drawstring, I looked down at the first piece, the braincase, viewing it from the top. Removing it from the bag, I was immediately struck by its long, narrow shape and the marked constriction of the forehead behind a well-developed brow ridge. The bridge of the nose was very high and prominent. My first thought was that this skull belonged to someone of European descent. The bone was in excellent condition, having the tan, almost golden color of bone that has lain in the ground for some years but not long enough to deteriorate. All the breaks were fresh-looking, which told me that the skull had been complete until it was disturbed. A second fragment in the bottom of the bucket caught my eye, and I picked it up. It was the upper jaw. Thin walls of bone projected forward along the sides of the nasal opening, and an immense bony spine extended beneath it. Clearly, the nose had been huge. The tooth row also appeared to project slightly, and there were distinct deep depressions behind the ridges formed by prominent canine teeth. Called a canine fossa, this is an archaic characteristic common to many European skulls. So far, the characteristics were consistent with my initial sense that this was a white person, a Caucasian.

I turned the bone to inspect the underside, and what I saw seemed at first to be at odds with the rest of the picture. The teeth were worn flat, and worn severely. This is a characteristic of American Indian skeletons, especially in the interior Pacific Northwest, where the people ate stone-ground fish, roots, and berries and lived almost constantly with blowing sand. My mind jumped to something I´d seen when I was fourteen years old, working at an ancient site on the Snake River in Washington called Marmes Rockshelter. I saw the narrow-headed skull of a person who had died between 5,000 and 7,000 years ago being preserved in plaster for transport to the Washington State University laboratory. It stared at me from that long-ago memory through empty eye sockets. "Paleo-Indian?" came the involuntary thought. "Paleo-Indian" is the label given to the very earliest American immigrants, traditionally presumed to be early versions of today´s Native Americans.

No, I thought, that can´t be. The inhabitants of the Americas had had broad faces, round heads, and presumably brown skin and straight black hair. They had come over from Siberia no more than 13,000 years ago across the Bering Land Bridge and therefore resembled their modern-day Siberian relatives. This was no Paleo-Indian -- was it?

"This looks like a white person," I told Floyd, "but it also could be very old." And I explained to him what I was noticing.

"How old?" he asked.

"It would have to be more than five thousand years, because everything I know of from after that time resembles modern Indians."

"I thought it looked old. But five thousand years! Amazing," he exclaimed.

I looked again at the braincase and, noting that the sutures -- the seams between the independent growth centers of the skull -- were all closed and nearly all obliterated, realized that this was an "aged" individual. Advanced age (beyond forty-five years when using suture closure as the measure) could account for the extreme tooth wear, so I put the thought of great age out of my mind. Prehistoric Northwest Indians had usually lost nearly all of their teeth by this age, but this man had a full set.

"So what do you think?" asked Floyd. "Is it an old Indian or what?"

"I don´t think so, but I need more information to be sure. Is there any more out there?"

"They said there are other bones where these came from," he replied, "but I haven´t even been out there myself yet. Do you want to go take a look?"

On the way to the site of the find, Floyd told the story of the discovery to me and my wife, Jenny, who had been watching the initial exchange and came along to see how things turned out. I later learned the details from the discoverers themselves.

Saturday and Sunday had been the days of the Columbia Cup, an unlimited hydroplane race on the Columbia River that culminated a summer-long Tri-Cities tradition of parades, sports, and music events called Sunfest. (The Tri-Cities are Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco in Washington State, about 140 miles southwest of Spokane.) The national-caliber race draws tens of thousands of tourists, who flock to Columbia Park …