The unavoidable “Kennewick Man”.

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

All,

I suppose this had to be brought up:

Scientists finally get their hands on Kennewick man

Rex Dalton, San Diego
Nature 436, 10 (7 July 2005)

Bone studies and DNA tests will help determine the origins of the 9,000-year-old skeleton.

America's most highly contested anthropology specimen, Kennewick man, is finally being studied by scientists.

After nine years of federal-court battles and several months of preparation, researchers last month began examining the ancient skull and bones. The US government and Native American tribes had fought to block the bones' examination under a federal law designed to protect ancient human remains. But last year, the eight scientists involved won the legal battle.

The male skeleton was found in July 1996, along the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. Preliminary radiocarbon dating suggests that Kennewick man lived about 9,300 calendar years ago. As there are so few full skeletons of New World individuals more than 8,000 years old, the researchers want to closely catalogue everything about the skeletal remains to try to work out who he was and where he came from. The bones will be inventoried and measured, and the skeleton reconstructed. It will then be checked for evidence of disease, trauma, diet and, with luck, DNA. The shape of the skull and the length of the arms and legs are also particularly valuable for deducing an individual's evolutionary history.

So far, key skeletal remains — particularly pieces of the skull — have been scanned using computerized tomography. The researchers aim to make a complete skull cast from the scan data to enable them to study the skull without disturbing the real bones too much. A stone blade or point encased in the pelvis has also been extensively scanned. The weapon is buried so deeply that the researchers can't identify its point or base, which could help to determine the weapon's heritage.

Douglas Owsley, head anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, who is leading some of the studies, says he is glad the work has finally begun. "I am really relieved," he says. "This is one of the most important specimens in the Americas."

But not all of the scientists who fought the case can take part in the work. The battle in federal court in Portland, Oregon, was so long that two of the eight scientists have retired, and a third, Robson Bonnichsen of Texas A&M University in College Station, died in his sleep last December, aged 64 — just two weeks after getting a look at the specimen. "He was euphoric when he got to see it," says Cleone Hawkinson, a retired anthropologist from Portland who helps the group. Ironically, Bonnichsen had filed a court declaration in 2002 arguing for a quick decision because senior scientists in the group might not live to study the bones.

The dispute has also been financially costly. The federal government must pay the scientists' $2.5-million legal costs, and the government's own costs are estimated at $6 million.

For the original article, click HERE, and for a look at what has come out on the web, click HERE.

Ironically, one could wonder about Douglas Owsley’s characterization of this particular specimen of early American sensu lato humanity as one of the most important specimens in the Americas. Was it, by any chance, influenced in great part by the intensity -- and associated costs -- of the legal/political “circus” that has been going on and rather well used by the media for quite a few years now? In this regard, I can readily imagine how much productive research could have bee carried out with $ 8.5 millions. At any rate, it would have been nice if mention had been made of the fact that the Kennewick fellow is but one in a growing number of early human skeletal remains from the USA, Mexico, and South America. Placing it in its larger, proper scientific context would certainly have been much more informative. I guess we should blame it all, i.e., this lack of perspective, on the reporter(s).

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

All,

A "must read", from John Hawks, on the "unavoidable K-Man" recent story. It can be found HERE

Not that it matters much, but I fully agree with all he has to say about the recent -- media relayed -- developments in this affair And to put this in a larger context, I will just add that K-Man is but one of a growing number of equally ancient and therefore, important New World human skeletal remains. One of the most complete review available on this material is:

Steele, D. Gentry and Joseph F. Powell. 1992. Peopling of the Americas: Palaeobiological Evidence. Human Biology 64(3): 303-336.

Also a "must read", in order to place the whole Kennewick affair in its proper research context and perspective.

I should mention -- for those of you interested in the larger New World palaoanthropological scene -- that this article was part of a special issue of Human Biology commemorating “1492”. Here is a summarized version of the TOCs:

When Two Worlds Collide
Human Biology 64:3 (1992:June) -- Table of Contents

Crawford, Michael H.
Special Issue on the Biological Anthropology of New World Populations.

How the Door Opened: The Peopling of the New World
Rogers, R. A., Rogers, L. A., and Martin, L. D.
Special Issue on the Biological Anthropology of New World Populations

Steele, D. Gentry and Powell, Joseph F.
Special Issue on the Biological Anthropology of New World Populations

New Approaches to the Study of Disease in Archeological New World Populations
Ortner, Donald J., Tuross, Noreen, and Stix, Agnes I.

Patterns of Demographic Change in the Americas
Ubelaker, Douglas H.

Immunoglobulin Allotypes (GM and KM) Indicate Multiple Founding Populations of Native Americans: Evidence of at Least Four Migrations to the New World
Schanfield, Moses S.

American Indian Prehistory as Written in the Mitochondrial DNA: A Review
Wallace, Douglas C. and Torroni, Antonio

Patterns of Genetic Variation in Native America
Rourke, Dennis H. O', Mobarry, Anne, and Suarez, Brian K.

Variation among North Amerindians: Analysis of Boas's Anthropometric Data
Jantz, R. L., Hunt, D. R., Falsetti, A. B., and Key, P. J.

Finally, a fair bit of new information, dealing with the broader picture, was presented and discussed at the “Clovis and Beyond” conference, held in Santa Fe, in October 1999. After a delay caused, in part by the unfortunate disappeance of Robson Bonnichsen, much of this new material will be published, this coming Fall, by the Center for the Study of the First Americans (Texas A&M). Here is the TOCs:

PALEOAMERICAN ORIGINS: BEYOND CLOVIS

A Peopling of the Americas Publication

Edited by Robson Bonnichsen, Bradley Lepper, D. Gentry Steele, Dennis Stanford, Jo Ann Harris, Claude N. Warren and Ruth Gruhn (Series Editor)

I. Introduction: Where We Have Been, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going.
By Robson Bonnichsen ca.

II. Paleoamerican Prehistory: Changing Perceptions of Paleoamerican Prehistory
By Robson Bonnichsen and Bradley T. Lepper, and D. Gentry Steele

A. Clovis
Clovis, pre-Clovis, climate change, and extinction
By C. Vance Haynes

Rapid Clovis colonization of the Americas: chronological evidence and archaeological analogies
By Stuart Fiedel

Comparing Clovis and the Western European Upper Paleolithic; what are the rules of evidence
By Michael B. Collins

B. Regional Archaeological Records

More bits and pieces: a new look at Lahontan Chronology and Human Occupation
By Amy J. Dansie and W. Jerry Jerrems

The Pleistocene Human Occupation of the Southeastern United States: Research Directions for the Early 21st Century
By David G. Anderson

The Ryan/Harley Site 8JE1004: A Suwanee Point Site in the Wacissa River, North Florida
By James S. Dunbar, Pamela K. Vonjnovski, C. Andrew Hemmings and S. David Webb

C. Pre-Clovis

Evidence for pre-Clovis sites in the Eastern United States
By Albert C. Goodyear

A Long View of Deep Time at Meadowcroft Rockshelter
By J.M. Adovasio

Late Glacial Ice-Marginal Adaptation in Southeastern Wisconsin
By David F. Overstreet

Late Wisconsinan Mammoth Procurement in the North American Grasslands
By Eileen Johnson

D. South America

Hunting and butchering events at Late Pleistocene / Early Holocene transition sites in Piedra Museo: an example of adaptive strategies of first colonizers of Patagonia
By Laura Miotti and Monica Salemme

The ignored continent: South America in models of earliest American prehistory
By Ruth Gruhn

E. Maritime Colonization

Envisioning Water Transport Technology in Late Pleistocene America
By Margaret A. Jodry

F. Genetic Evidence

Tracking genes through time and space: changing perspectives on Native Americanorigins
By Theodore G. Schurr

Mitochondrial DNA haplogroups of the Ancient Ones: evidence for regional continuity in the New World
By David Glenn Smith, Ripan S. Malhi, Jason A. Eshleman and Federika A. Kaestle

G. Skeletal Evidence

Circumpacific populations and the peopling of the New World: Evidence from cranial morphometrics
By Richard Jantz and Dougulas W. Owsley

The appearance of the Mongoloid skeletal trait complex onto the Northern Great Plains: migration, selection or both?
By George W. Gill

Patterns of craniometric variation and geographical distribution in North America: An historical comparison
By Russell Nelson

Nearsightedness in Paleoamerican research
By Douglas W. Owlsely and Richard L. Jantz

III. Conclusions:

Where We are Going: Public Policy and Science
By Alan L. Schneider

Paleoamerican Origins: The Rules of Evidence
By Robson Bonnichsen and Alan L. Schneider

IV. Index

A more elegant PDF version of the same is available -- should you feel a need for it! If I get further details on this publucations, I'll pass them on.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[Robert Henvell]

Has anyone sighted any DNA results for the circa 11000bce crania the S Gonsales [sp?] mentioned in her press interview last year?If memory serves someone from the University of Adelaide was attempting to recover the DNA [?].

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Has anyone sighted any DNA results for the circa 11000bce crania the S Gonsales [sp?] mentioned in her press interview last year?If memory serves someone from the University of Adelaide was attempting to recover the DNA [?].

I have not heard a thing about this. If you are right about the University of Adelaide connection, the chances are that such work could be carried out by Alan Cooper who, until recently, was with the Oxford University Ancient Biomolecules Lab (previously mentioned HERE.)

For additional info on Cooper’s activities, go the the Links Board (HERE)

Jacques

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

I have not heard a thing about this. If you are right about the University of Adelaide connection, the chances are that such work could be carried out by Alan Cooper who, until recently, was with the Oxford University Ancient Biomolecules Lab (previously mentioned HERE.)

For additional info on Cooper’s activities, go the the Links Board (HERE)

Jacques

Here are a few comments that I should have included in the above.

While it would certainly be nice if some “readable” molecular info were to come out of the early skeletal remains Sylvia Gonzalez has been talking about, the track record provided so far by earlier attempts on similar (in terms of age, geography, and fossilization history) specimens, has been iffy, at the very best.

And then, in the event of successful DNA extraction, we would be confronted with the equally iffy matters of “interpretation” pertaining to dating and relationship issues that actually fuel and, unfortunately too often, muddle the debate -- scientific as well as media driven -- surrounding the early history of human dispersals in the New World. There are times when I wonder!

Jacques

[richard01]

You might find more about Dr Gonzalez' research team, etc at http://www.mexicanfootprints.co.uk/research/peopling.htm - the footprints are the big news, and the DNA bit seems to have got a bit lost

regards

Richard