He lay undisturbed for 9000 years but for the past nine he has been at the centre of a bitter legal tug of war.
鈥淜ennewick Man鈥�, an almost-complete human skeleton, was discovered by college students in 1996 next to the Columbia river in Kennewick, Washington. He is coveted by scientists anxious to study his unusual features, and by Native American tribes who claim he is one of their ancestors. They are equally anxious to rebury him.
The courts decided last year that the tribes could not prove ancestry, and 11 scientists were given from 6 to 15 July to study the bones. The remains are held at the University of Washington鈥檚 Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
Advertisement
This study is looking 鈥渁t the effect of the environment on the remains from death to the current time鈥�, says Nola Leyde of the Seattle district public affairs office of the US Army Corps of Engineers, which looks after the remains.
