Why turn over Caucasian Kennwick man to Native Amreicans?

Question

I watched an intriguing PBS documentary about two or so years ago that stated the Kennwick man, the oldest human remains in North America, appeared to be Caucasian. Yet, Native Americans are being allowed to claim Kennewick man - which seems mainly motivated by wanting to cover up the evidence and removing it from study. Another about as old human remain was found over on the Atlantic coast of Central America, I believe, according to this same documentary. Both pre-date the Clovis culture intrusion (which, by the way, was quickly followed by the extermination of all the large mammals in North America that did not resemble the Asian mammals from which the Clovis culture emigrated.)

Political correctness should not be hand in hand with intellectual dishonesty.

If there was a genetic link to the modern Indian, I would say turn him over, but the Native Americans and their totalitarian handlers are just trying to cover up that Caucasians were here first; Clovis took our land away.

Answer 1

The "Native America" controversy will always be here, at least for many years to come until it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt, they were not here first or, inhabited the land since the beginning of time. It's partly part of their religious theory so, we have to give them their due.

     I want to say, two of my Grand children and one daughter-in-Law are native Americans. They don't argue the point and, in fact can trace their genealogy to 1650.

      We know for a fact, the early inhabitants came from the Northern Islands of Japan or, what was Japan, was indeed, a land mass that almost touched the Kamchatka peninsula, we now know some may have come by boat or, what was considered a boat or a shell. So, that opens a lot of interesting theories, like maybe some came from other Southeastern areas, some from Northern Russia.

        At any rate, one preceded the other through tibial wars, pillaging and looting, they had a lot of internal strife they like to overlook. They themselves created more confusion then the white man.

         Kenn-wick man like "ossi" the ice man, deserves an honorable burial. We ourselves have autopsies, the same should be true for him, then an honorable burial.

Answer 2

Several tribes of Indians did try and get the remains but the were eventually turned over to the scientists. As I think they should have been all along. A simple DNA test could have solved this problem 10 yeas and 20 million dollars ago.

I understand that people (any people) want there ancestors to be treated with respect and have a proper burial according to their beliefs. BUT, things in the US have gone too far and it is because were have so many different cultures. We need to take a page from the Canadians. When older remains are found there, they are studied (with great respect and consideration) and quickly returned to the tribe where they are then properly buried. They make a point to get along.

The thing the gets me is NO ONE is complaining about the bodies dug up in Jamestown. They have an ongoing (10th yr) excavation that has found many bodies. They are dug up and studied and so far I have not heard of even one of them being reburied. I also have not heard 1 complaint, from the English, French, Germans or Indians. So I guess it is OK to dig up white people....I'm saying this to show it is PC that is ruling these court cases. The only ones who benefit are the lawyers. Personally, I think all remains older than 1000 years should be studied before they are returned.

Answer 3

Politics, pure & simple. Political correctness has run amock in not only the US but Europe & Australia too. The remains of Mungo man in Australia were turned over to aboriginals, even though DNA testing established conclusively that he was not even remotely related to native Australians & was in fact more closely related to Neandertal than to any modern Sapien.  Sickening to say the least!

Answer 4

Is this true? I thought they were in court about this for quite a while, and it was eventually decided that the Native Americans had no provable claim to Kennwick man.

Hmm, I must do some research...

Answer 5

Asi sea....

Answer 6

There's no real evidence that Caucasians were here first. Kennewick man appears more Caucasian than Native Americans, but it's not anywhere near proven that he was. He may have been related to the Ainu (indigenous of Japan), who are Asian but happen to have a more Caucasian look than other Asian ethnicities.

It's far more likely that he was related to Native Americans than Europeans, based on the evidence we have right now.

Answer 7

First off, he has SOME features in common with Caucasians, but he has MORE features in common with some aboriginal Asiatic peoples.

Also, the whole fight between the local tribes and the archaeologists?  Wasn't about political correctness.  That's major BS.  If you look at the relations between the Umatillas and the Army Corps of Engineers BEFORE the Kennewick man was found. . .well,  let's just say the Army Corps of Engineers had reason to be sucking up to the Umatillas.

It wasn't political correctness, it was politics.  Political correctness made it easy to hide some land disputes and sweep the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers had reason to need to suck up to the Umatillas under the rug, at least from what I've heard here and there.

In other words, as always, there's a LOT more to the story than meets the eye.

Including the fact that although the Kennewick man bore more than a passing resemblance to Patrick Stewart, he prolly was NOT European!

Answer 8

Patrick Stewart looks like a recreation of one of the Neanderthal I saw.  The plot thickens.  I'm a Euronative- American I have more claim.

Answer 9

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 requires that sacred objects, human remains and grave goods have to be returned to the culturally affiliated tribe, so...it's the law.

The Native Americans are likely a mix of Asian and Caucasian, I don't see why you turned a simply question into a rant.

*Edit* Haha, constellation, he looks EXACTLY like Patrick Stewart.

Answer 10

Why turn over Caucasian Kennwick man to Native Americans?  ~ Because it is the law.

If you are looking for fairness and logic, well, that is rare in the world.  

The best way to get what you want is to get legislation introduced to change the law, ie: make the claimant have to prove scientifically an ancestral connection.  The law is about facts, not feelings.  Then you need to get a lawyer that will specialize in these kind of suits so that your cases will benefit from their growing experience.  You don't want a green lawyer each time.

It is a game that you have to beat, that is all. For example, a law could state that all remains must have genetic material sampled for possible old world diseases, like small pox, that no longer exist or are very rare for public safety reasons.  This opens a 'loophole'.  

The people in this field need to collectively organize and fund and lobby for the change they want.  And when the political climate is right, they can win.   The big problem I see is that schools are pumping out kids that are scientifically ignorant . These ignorant people then become our politicians, our lobbyists, our newscasters.  Science is often seen as mythology while religion is undisputed fact.

I know that Science for the sake of Science is noble, but Science seems to barely have a foothold in everyday people's lives and minds.  People of the Sciences need to change this, or we will have another 'Dark Ages'

Well, I think I just depressed myself! ;-(

ps:  This is a question that I just now saw under 'Anthropology' :

'What is evolution? Is it real? I want a Creationist's point-of-view please.?'

He wants a creationists point of view, please.

I rest my case.

Answer 11

Kennewick man wasn't a Caucasian, he was most like an Ainu, and indeed, tell tale Ainu gene combinations have been found in Native Americans.

The last I heard the native Americans had lost the fight for custody of the remains. Has that changed? It's looking that the Asian population wave was something like the fourth group of humans to colonise the Americas, the Australoids , Ainus and Solutreans beat them to it, but they can probably claim them all in their ancestry.

It is shocking this kind of pandering to PC-ness goes on. In England a few years ago a bunch of 'neo-druids' got a court order to prevent archaeologists digging into a 'woodhenge' that had been uncovered by the sea on a beach. The sea was destroying it, so it was going to be gone in a year or so, and they hadn't even known it was there before. Yet they successfully claimed it was important to their religion. Sickening.

I just dug this up. If you Americans don't DO SOMETHING NOW, all future finds will go straight to the tribes.

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:gFp...