What does the amendment to NAGPRA by Senator John McCain mean to the existence of Kennewick Man?

Question

According to NAGPRA, it seems that if ancestral bones of a tribe or tribes are found, and it is proven that they are of that tribe, then they belong to that tribe. I'm not sure, but it looks like the tribes couldn't show evidence of this, so anthropologists were able to study the remains of Kennewick Man.

Senator John McCain, according to this wikipedia article, pushed to add an amendment that sounds like it would have allowed Kennewick Man to be claimed by a tribe or tribes. Is this correct? I'm asking because it's a little confusing to me; not sure I understand. Plus not sure why McCain did this.

Answer 1

Because if it's anti-educational, and anti-progressive (i.e. Stem-Cell research, etc.), you can be sure that a conservative Republican will latch onto the cause, just for the sake of a few Native American votes, that would likely go the other way!

Answer 2

The simple answer is the amendment would cause Kenniwick Man to be given to the tribes. No proof would be required.

While NAGPRA doesn't state "Any bones found before 1492 are hereby Native American." That's what the government lawyers argued in the Kenniwick Man case. The judge then asked "If Viking remains from Vinland were found (C.1000 CE) would they be given to the tribes?" The lawyers answered "Yes." This is also the intend of the amendment.

NAGPRA currently requires that "tribes can lay claim to cultural objects and human remains locked away in federally funded museums or unearthed on federal land. In order to do so, they must prove a reasonable connection between themselves and the objects they wish to obtain"

http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/005294....

In the case of Kenniwick Man the court found: "no reasonable person could conclude on this record that Kennewick Man is ‘Native American' under NAGPRA." Bonnichsen v. United States, 367 F.3d 864, 880 (9th Cir. 2004)

The proposed amendment states "Section 2(9) of Public Law 101-601 (25 U.S.C. 3001(9)) is amended by inserting "or was" after "is."

NAGPRA would then read "of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or culture that is or was indigenous to the United States."

"Expanding NAGPRA in this way imposes a simplistic view of the past: that the only inhabitants of the continent were the ancestors of modern American Indians. Time and time again, scientists have refuted this idea.... With NAGPRA's amended language, the public would be denied access to any information discovered about the earliest people to inhabit the continent. All information about our prehistory would belong exclusively to the tribes

http://www.friendsofpast.org/nagpra/0409...

Here's the real issue: Kenniwick Man, Spirit Cave Man, and all of the earliest human remains found in North America, are physically different from Native Americans. This suggests that the earliest humans into North America were not the ancestors of today's Native Americans. If so, what happened to them? Did they intermarry, die off or were they wiped out? To determine if these early remains were different from the Paleo Indians DNA and scientific examination is required. Should the amendment pass, then such research will be prohibited.

Being of Danish heritage, it's possible I share DNA with any Viking remains found in North America. However, under the new NAGPRA, such remains would automatically be given to the tribes.