|
|
|
|
Kennewick Man may be reconstructed Thursday, September 05, 2002 KENNEWICK — Scientists may try to piece together Kennewick Man's skeleton to determine what secrets the ancient bones hold. A group of eight scientists and their colleagues are starting to prepare a plan to study Kennewick Man after a judge overturned a federal agency's decision blocking independent study of the 9,000-year-old skeletal remains. The proposal, due to U.S. Magistrate John Jelderks within 45 days, is likely to include an effort to piece together the remains. "Our study team will look at the entire skeleton, as much as he can be reassembled, and say how the different colorations ... bone fragments ... and weathering patterns relate to each other," said Alan Schneider, a Portland lawyer representing the scientists who sued the federal agencies that had custody of the remains. "What we can get is a good comprehensive foundation of information ... a more comprehensive view about what happened in the peopling of the Americas," Schneider said. The 350 bones and fragments were discovered in July 1996 on the Columbia River shoreline in Kennewick. The find constituted one of the oldest and most complete sets of skeletal remains found in North America and touched off debate about whether Kennewick Man had been an ancestor of American Indians or an early visitor from another continent. The scientists sued for access to the bones after the Interior Department backed American Indian claims that the remains should be reburied without further studies. Schneider expects the study will be performed at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington. Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company |
|
Copyright © 2010
Tim Stouse
|