Archeology
Consider the following update on the status of Kennewick Man, then answer the question that follows:
As of April 19, 2004, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier decision by U.S. District Court Judge Jelderks that the remains could not be defined as “Native American” under the NAGPRA law. Therefore the Kennewick Man remains are still under the control of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and scientific study of the remains by the plaintiffs was allowed to take place….
Since the 2004 ruling, the plaintiffs and their colleagues have made three visits to the Burke Museum to carry out scientific research on the remains. Representatives of some of the tribes involved in the case have also been allowed to make visits to the remains to conduct ceremonies, and they remain committed to having Kennewick Man repatriated…
Dr. Douglas Owsley, Smithsonian physical anthropologist and one of the plaintiffs, has shared some of his preliminary findings with local tribes and the general public. He co-wrote a children’s book, Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and The Paleoamerican World, published in late 2012 with Sally Walker. A book primarily written for academic audiences was released in September 2014. It co-edited by Owsley and Dr. Richard Jantz, another plaintiff in the case.
[from http://www.burkemuseum.org/kennewickman, consulted March 2, 2015]
In the end, do you think that the courts made the right decision in the Kennewick Man case? Justify your position (why it was a bad decision) by referring to specific details of the case, considering some or all of the following, as necessary for your argument: cultural affiliation as defined by NAGPRA, various lines of evidence of the cultural affiliation of Kennewick Man, the Asatru Folk Assembly, the scientific importance of the skeleton, and/or the potential conflict of interest of archaeologists. Also, consider the topic of archeological Dissonant Pluralism, the supposed ‘whiteness’ that may have had an impact on the court case decision, Indigenous Archeology, and the correlation between Kennewick Man and fossils found in Zhoukoudian, China and what that may entail (migrations and skull morphologies).
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