Kennewick Man

Michael J. Kelly

Kennewick Man is the appellation bestowed upon the prehistoric human remains of an individual discovered in the Columbia River at its confluence with the Snake River, near Kennewick, Washington, during the summer of 1996. A legal battle ensued between the scientific community and the Native American community as to whether the bones should be studied or buried. Kennewick Man's near-complete skeleton had washed into the riverbed from a nearby eroding bank. The remains were examined by Dr. James Chatters, a local anthropologist, who initially described the morphology of the bones as that of a Caucasian middle-aged male. Although Chatters initially considered the skeleton to be that of an early pioneer, a stone spearpoint lodged in the pelvis caused Chatters to order further analysis, which revealed an age of over 9,000 years. Because the skeleton was discovered in a navigable waterway, it came under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps ...

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