Man of Kennewick

the man of Kennewick is the name given to the remainders of a prehistoric man found close to the river Columbia, beside the town of Kennewick, in the State of Washington in the North-West of the the United States.
Le skeleton was put at the day following a crumbling of bank and found on July 28th, 1996, at the time of the annual race of hydroplanes on Columbia by two young spectators who had stumbled on a " galet" round, makes of it cranium of the man of Kennewick. Jim Chatters, the local paleanthropologist convened on the spot noted at once that the cranium, obviously old, has characters caucasoïdes like Europeans. He then decides to excavate more before and to extract the 350 fragments from the more or less complete skeleton of the same individual. The bone of the basin reserves a surprise: a point of cut stone lance, almost whole, remained inserted there. It would be the most probable cause of its death.

An important discovery

After several studies, the specialists estimate that the man of Kennewick lived between 9.200 and 9.600 years (carbon dating). This done of this skeleton one of the four older overdrafts in America. Other analyzes revealed that this man would be Caucasian and nonAmerindian physical. This discovery calls into question the theory of the Asian settlement of the American continent: it would seem that the colonization of the “New World” is more complex than he did not appear to with it.

Its discoverer describes it as follows: “ It is only (skeleton) the also complete one and also old man in the United States. He belonged to a man of forty years to the narrow face, with the prominent chin. He did not have a peaceful life. He often contracted the mouth and undoubtedly cried much… ” However, according to its analyzes, this man does not resemble obviously to the other men populating the area at that time: obviously, its anatomy is of type “caucasoïde”, i.e. European, and not mongoloïde like the Asian ones and the Indians of America. Moreover, the techniques used for the manufacture of the flint points are the same ones as those used at the time of the Solutréen S 17.000 years ago in current France. Made by the Douglas American Wallace (Emory University in Altanta), research on DNA mitochondrial of the Amerindians of a tribe of the North-East of the United States made it possible to corroborate this assumption. They reveal indeed that there exists a Western-European stock going back to approximately 15.000 years. What proves that the first migratory wave the human ones in America took its rise of current Europe.

The scientific polemic

The discovery of the man of Kennewick starts again the polemic on the way in which Americas would have become populated of Paléoaméricains.

According to the version " officielle" and " traditionnelle" , the first people of the New World would have from Southeast Asia by the Bering Strait 11.500 years ago. (Site of Clovis)
But according to the versions " dissidentes" and " modernes" , other people resulting from the Japanese archipelago or Europe, would have unloaded much earlier, between 16.000 and 24.000 years, even even earlier (35 000 years for the skeleton " Australoïde " of Luzia, 50.000 years for the human presence in the site of Topper to the the United States and 60.000 years for the prehistoric site of Pedra Furada with the Brazil). Men of Solutréen (Paleolithic superior, in France and Spain) could also have coasted along the ice-barrier, which went down then until the latitude from current Spain.

Other skeletons of the European type

the bones of the Femme of Peñon (approximately 13.000 years), discovered close to Mexico City show also characteristics europoïdes.

the remainders of a man of the Caucasian type, partly momifié, was found on the site of the Grotte of the Spirits, with the Nevada; it was dated between -11.000 and -8000

The polemic concerning the rights of the Indian minorities

In addition, a polemic appeared when the Indian tribes (whose Umatillas, Colvilles, Walla-wallas, Yakimas and Pierced-nose Indians) authorities obtained the right to recover the bones of this man that they name “the large ancestor” to return it to the ground and as since 1990 a federal law authorizes it, the Native American Serious Protection and Repatriation Act. At the beginning of April 1998, the army corps of the engineers (of the governmental soldiers) recovers the site where the skeleton was discovered. The satisfied Indians chair the ceremony, while a helicopter of the army pours tons of ground and stone on the site, prohibiting all future research. The bones, them, are put under sequestration at Burke Museum, Seattle, in the state of Washington. Deprived of their object of study, the scientists brought a lawsuit with the government in the hope to obtain the right to analyze this skeleton with unexpected morphology. They protest, asserting that the 450 generations which separate the Homme from Kennewick of the Amerindian from today prohibit to establish a serious filiation, a fortiori among wandering populations.

See too

Random links: