Stakeholders and Archaeologists

• Discovery: "Kennewick Man" found in 1996 near the Columbia River.

• Stakeholders: Umatilla Tribe, scientists, Army Corps of Engineers, federal government.

• Legal Battle: Custody and treatment of remains under NAGPRA.

• Scientific Findings: Initial skull morphology study suggested Polynesian ancestry; later DNA testing linked to Colville tribe.

• Cultural Tension: Conflict between indigenous sovereignty and scientific inquiry.

• Broader Implications: Cultural preservation, human rights, and the role of social sciences.

On July 28, 1996 two young men playing along the bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington discovered a human skull (Preston 1).  The County Coroner called in a local archaeologist, James C. Chatters, and together they dug out a human skeleton from the bank of the river and removed it to Chatters’ lab for examination.  Chatters learned through radiocarbon dating that the skeleton was almost 9,000 years old (Preston 1).  Once the Army Corps of Engineers found out its age they claimed jurisdiction over the skeleton and ended the research on the remains.  A long legal battle ensued in which several actors intervened on behalf of the corpse, but ultimately the Army Corps of Engineers retained custody of the remains (Preston 1).  In 2004 the Umatilla and other tribes in concert with the Federal government ended their years’ long legal battle.  The “Ancient One,” also known as “The Kennewick Man” was claimed by the Umatilla Nation as a possible ancestor of the tribe.  Nevertheless. in July of 2005 Chatters and a team of scientists were allowed to briefly examine the skeleton for 16 days, and published their work in book form (Preston 1).  At issue in the courts was the ancestry and ownership of the bones.  At issue in the case and the public at large was the revered cultural traditions of the First Nations versus the inquisitive nature of modern science (Goldberg 1).

There were a number of stakeholders in the case of the Ancient One.  The Umatilla Tribe along with the rest of the Columbia Plateau and the Nez Perce as part of The Confederated Tribes of the Colville claimed ancestry of the Ancient One (Multiple 1).  Alongside the Columbia Plateau and Colville coalitions, the Army Corps of Engineers was both busy working on other projects and in the case of the Ancient One working to follow the letter and the spirit of the law (Preston 2).  Across the aisle were the scientists and historians interested in establishing the genealogy, history, and environment of the skeleton.  And tangentially supporting the indigenous peoples’ coalitions the Federal Government, including the Department of Justice, allied with the Army Corps of Engineers in its efforts to abide by the provisions of the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, commonly referred to as NAGPRA (Preston 1).

During their initial examination, in lieu of prohibited genetic testing Chatters and his team applied the results of a skull morphology study in their analysis of the Ancient One.  The skull morphology study was so extensive that it inspired a NOVA documentary on the techniques that scientists use to reconstruct a possible human face from the remains of ancient skulls (Chatters).  From their reconstruction they gleaned that the Ancient One may have been Polynesian in ancestry, and perhaps had even migrated here in a boat along the shoreline of ancient Beringia and not via migration over the Bering Sea land bridge as the prevailing theories maintained (Preston 2).  He and his team conjectured that these ancient peoples might have managed their way into the South Pacific at a time that pre-dated the arrival of indigenous peoples’ ancestors and eventually populated the Polynesian islands themselves.  It was a very personal and vivid experience for Chatters and his research team (Chatters 3).  As he said himself, “I would say I’m driven by curiosity.  Sometimes you come to a skeleton that wants to talk to you, that whispers to you, ‘I want to tell my story.’ And that was Kennewick Man.” (Chatters 3)

Nevertheless, NAGPRA’s language is clear that remains of a type like the Ancient One are to be returned to the indigenous peoples that can claim heritage by DNA, or the closest living relatives that can be found using this process (AAPA).  In the absence of that evidence though, the courts ordered that the Army Corps of Engineers remain in custody of the remains.  Since the decision, DNA testing has been allowed to proceed, and it has lately been shown that “the pattern observed in Kennewick Man is mirrored in the Colville, who also show a high affinity with Southern populations” of North American indigenous peoples (Rasmussen 456).

In Nye’s examination of American Power and Priorities we can find an analogue in his system of prioritizing threats to the U.S. to a method we might use to prioritize threats to artifacts and remains of indigenous persons and places.  In the “A list” threats we might find cultural extinction through theft or malfeasance, for example, and in the “B list” threats we might find the defacing or destruction of heritage sites, and in the “C list” threats we might find anti-Tribal lobbying sentiments in Washington D.C., each level representing the degree of threat posed to the tribes.  The “A list” issues in the case of the Ancient One include the exclusion of indigenous people from self-determination regarding the remains and the importance of the Federal agencies involved to uphold those principles as best it could under the rules of NAGPRA.  “B list” interests might be represented by the scientific communities and institutions like the Smithsonian, and “C list” interests might include any local non-Indian landowners or other stakeholders opposed to the tribes on political grounds.  Using this analogy, we can see that approaching the situation of the Ancient One from the perspective of the people indigenous to that land is necessary to protect the living memories and traditions of the Ancient One’s ancestors, and ultimately their very survival as a distinct indigenous people.

But might we add “The People” – the American people – to the A-list stakeholders in this case?  Assuring first that indigenous people exercise complete sovereignty over the entirety of their history and what remains of that history, and then with permission analyzing those artifacts, stories, and symbols that other cultures wish to share with the broader American nation only serves to educate and inform in the most holistic manner possible.  Scientists can subject those gifts of cultural and history that are freely offered by the tribes to the rigors of scientific inquiry, and then the humanities can step in to apply its studious methodologies of critical analysis to help provide subjective context, dimension and new ways of thinking about the evidence for respectful analysis.  In this three-way win a broader goal of righting old wrongs could emerge.

 A confluence of events created an environment in the early years of the case that blinded stakeholders to the cultural and human needs of the Columbia Plateau and Colville peoples in their quest to retrieve the remains of the Ancient One.  NAGPRA prevents DNA analysis on non-patriated remains (AAPA), while the Army Corps of Engineers was forced to retain possession of the bones because their ancestral origin was suspect.  Boxed in, the scientists that initially examined the remains were forced to use less-rigorous methods to draw their conclusions, further confounding the argument surrounding their ancestry.  It was in the early years of the discovery though that the Nez Perce recognized the historical and cultural significant of the ancient remains (Various).  Besides immediately filing suit to have the remains reburied, a coalition of tribes worked with the Army Corps of Engineer to cover over tracts on and around the site to prevent enthusiasts from disturbing the area (Preston 1).  And, as recently as 2014, the repatriation expert at The Confederated Tribes of the Colville, 60-year old Jackie Cook, documented her efforts to repatriate tribal members throughout her career.  She commented, "I want people to understand that the tribes know their history; they know their history well," she said. "This wasn't an empty landscape for anybody. There were communities here. There were people here. ... Having all that knowledge, you have to have help. You can't do this by yourself." (Pan 1)

It is up to scientists, really up to everyone, to make room for the needs and help heal the wounds of indigenous peoples in America.  American citizens are stakeholders in the outcome of rigorous science as well as the issues of indigenous peoples’ treaty rights to their lands, culture and heritage.  In the case of the Ancient One, when the social sciences intervened in issues that required quantitative answers and precise application of applicable laws according to stakeholder merit, all of the stakeholders lost – the Colville are still unable to repatriate their ancestor, the scientists were hampered in their ability to access proper qualitative measuring tools, the government was stymied by the NAGRPA legislation that has few teeth, and it took almost 20 years for everyone to agree on the DNA testing essential to the facts of the case (Rasmussen 455). 

It may be as the sciences evolve that social sciences will acquire technology and resources for more quantitative measurements of their qualitative methods that assist in mitigating the issues of enthusiasm and misunderstanding that aggravated this case.  And of course Congressional clarification of the sovereign nature of tribes that unequivocally upholds the principles of the Trust Doctrine and other expansive treaty rights can help keep eager enthusiasts and overbearing corporate interests from infringing on that sovereignty (King 123).  In the meantime, for our own edification, we might ask the social sciences to remain on the periphery of analysis of what remains of our shared historical past.  Not to sideline the social science, but as a way to enhance their value by adding context and data to their often subjective analyses.

References

AAPA. "AAPA - Position Statement on Kennewick Man." AAPA - Position Statement on Kennewick Man. American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 20 Oct. 2000. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <http://rla.unc.edu/saa/repat/Agency/AAPA.2000-10-20.html>.

Chatters, Jim. "Meet Kennewick Man." PBS. PBS, 15 Feb. 2000. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/meet-kennewick-man.html>.

Goldberg, Steven. "Kennewick Man and the Meaning of Life." Georgetown Law Library. Georgetown Law Library, 2006. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1447&context=facpub>.

King, Thomas. The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America. 9th ed. N.p.: Anchor Canada, 2013. Print.

Pan, Deanna. "The Ancient One." Inlander. Inlander, 17 Sept. 2014. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <http://www.inlander.com/spokane/the-ancient-one/Content?oid=2355795>.

Multiple. "Ancient One / Kennewick Man." Ancient One / Kennewick Man. Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, 19 July 2004. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <https://web.archive.org/web/20130423053805/http://www.umatilla.nsn.us/kman14.html>.

Nye, Joseph S. "Redefining the National Interest." Foreign Affairs 78.4 (1999): 22-35. Print.

Preston, Douglas. "The Kennewick Man Finally Freed to Share His Secrets. Smithsonian. Smithsonian, Sept. 2014. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/kennewick-man-finally-freed-share-his-secrets-180952462>.

Rasmussen, Morten, Et Al. "The Ancestry and Affiliations of Kennewick Man." Nature 25th ser. 14.6 (2015): 455-58. SMU. Macmillan Publishers, 2015. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <http://www.smu.edu/~/media/Site/Dedman/Departments/Anthropology/MeltzerPDFs/Rasmussen et al 2015 NATURE The ancestry and affiliations of Kennewick Man.ashx?la=en>.

Various. "The Kennewick Man Case." Friend's of America's Past:. Friend's of Americas Past, 11 Nov. 1998. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <http://www.friendsofpast.org/kennewick-man/>.