Claim CJ311:
Kennewick Man is a 9,400-year-old human skeleton found along the Columbia
River in Washington state. Oral tradition of the Umatilla tribe says that
they had always inhabited that area, making Kennewick Man their ancestor,
and requiring, under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act, that his bones be returned to the Umatilla for reburial.
Source:
Armand Minthorn, cited in Morell 1998, below.
Response:
- Populations migrate and disperse. Very few family groups stay in one
place for 9,000 years. It is unlikely that Kennewick Man was an
ancestor of any of today's Umatilla.
- Traditions from some other tribes in the area, such as the Quillayute,
strongly imply that the Umatilla have not been native there forever
(Clark 1953; Isaak 2002). Even a pagan group has claimed Kennewick
Man as an ancestor.
- It is ironic to note that the only form of creationism to receive
federal approval in United States in the last fifty years is Umatilla
creationism (although a circuit court of appeal has overturned this
decision (Chatters 2001, 266; Paulson 2004; Holden 2004).
References:
- Chatters, J. C., 2001. (see below)
- Clark, Ella E., 1953. Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest,
Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Holden, Constance, 2004. Scientists hope ruling will lead them to
bones. Science 303: 943.
- Isaak, Mark, 2002. Flood stories from around the world.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html#Quillayute
- Paulson, Tom, 2004. Scientists win Kennewick Man ruling.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5 Feb. 2004,
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/159408_kennewickman05.html
Further Reading:
Chatters, James C., 2001. Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the
first Americans. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Morell, Virginia, 1998. Kennewick Man's trials continue. Science
280:
190-192.
created 2003-11-1, modified 2004-6-6
