Kennewick Man Sheds Light on New World Colonization

UW Professor: Kennewick Man Sheds Light on New World Colonization

April 5, 2006 — Study of the 9,000-year-old skeleton Kennewick Man is shedding light on who first colonized the New World, says a University of Wyoming professor of anthropology.

UW’s resident expert on human bones, George Gill, says preliminary studies have led researchers to suggest the Kennewick, Wash., skeleton most closely resembles Polynesian or Ainu peoples. If confirmed, Kennewick Man may prove that migration to the Americas occurred both by the Bering Strait land bridge and by different means from other regions.

“Archaeological evidence, like Kennewick Man, is revealing an increasingly complex picture of migration. I think it probably was that complicated and we’ve had a much too simplistic view in the past,” Gill says. “It will take more specimens like Kennewick Man before we have the whole picture figured out. Over the next few years, we hope to find more evidence and better analyze the evidence we have to answer some of these questions.”

Gill is among a select number of scientists entrusted with non-metric research of Kennewick Man. Much of the scientific and political interest of the case will lie on their shoulders as they research immeasurable characteristics such as the shape of the hard palate and the connections between bones that leave marks, known as suture lines, on the skeleton’s face to determine ancestry.

“Forensic scientists know the best way to tell ancestry from a skeleton is often not the metric methods, but the non-metrics. They’re just a little bit less quantified at this point but I’m working with my students to quantify some of these methods that have been used for decades,” he says. “The suture lines have a high genetic tracking, just like the dimensions of the skull do, but are not as well explored. I’m one of the few who’s doing actual research on them.”

Douglas Owsley, division head for physical anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, led the 10-year legal battle over Kennewick Man and heads the subsequent studies of the skeleton. He asked Gill to assist because of his non-metric expertise and specifically to examine the nasal projection, which the government team of anthropologists determined to be Caucasoid-like.

The government team’s analysis influenced the legal outcome by failing to link the remains to existing Native American tribes. Gill’s metric approach to assess nasal projection — which sorts out Europeans from others with 90 percent accuracy — was used by both the defendant’s government research team during the trial and just recently by Gill. The technique was similar; their conclusions, somewhat different.

“The government scientist who took my approach found Kennewick Man to be on the Caucasoid side, which modern Native Americans and Polynesians aren’t. Their attempt to apply my method found that he fell on the side with European whites. I find he falls a little short of that. He’s European-like in some ways and in other ways — ways that they thought he was — he’s not.”

The “big picture” from Kennewick Man will be a few years down the road, but in February, Owsley discussed some of his findings in Seattle at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. His revelation of details such as how Kennewick Man was buried, the injuries he sustained and his ancestry has revived the public fascination with Kennewick Man. Most recently, Kennewick Man was the subject of the featured article, “Who Were the First Americans?” in the March 13 issue of Time magazine.

To date, scientists have found only about 50 skeletons as ancient as Kennewick Man and most of them only in fragments. Many describe it as the most significant anthropological find in North America. Gill isn’t willing to go quite that far, but says these could well be the most important human remains ever found on this continent.

“Kennewick Man is one of the oldest and best-preserved skeletons and he’s getting the appropriate study to really be a valuable source of knowledge,” says Gill.

When it was found in 1996, the skeleton became the focus of a controversial legal battle between anthropologists and the Army Corps of Engineers (who owned the land on which the remains were found) on behalf of the Northwest Native American tribes. The tribes almost immediately claimed “the Ancient One” as an ancestor.

Backed by knowledge that Kennewick Man’s skeletal features bore little similarity to those of modern Native Americans, Owsley, who is a UW graduate and Gill’s former student, along with seven other plaintiffs including Gill, sued for the right to study the rare skeleton.

A federal court in Oregon ruled in 2002 in favor of Owsley and the plaintiffs, citing that the defendant had failed to establish the requisite links to modern Native Americans. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the decision in 2004. Two years later last February, Owsley invited the UW professor and 19 other specialists to the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, to study Kennewick Man.

Owsley has noted that the research approach they are taking to learn about the skeleton will not only shed light on Kennewick Man himself, it will likely serve as a model for future significant anthropological finds.

“Doug has talked about this and I really believe he’s right. By taking this team approach in which we bring in leading people in each area of research on a really important find like this, we are setting a precedent for the future,” Gill says. “In the past, political and economic factors have prevented the team approach from happening in this country. I think our success in studying Kennewick Man will show the scientific community and the world how much more you can learn if you let a group of specialists work together.”

The basic team research effort has concluded, Gill says, now it’s a matter of putting it together and deciding how to present the information to the world. If recent publicity is any indication, the world eagerly awaits.