Focus 580; Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans

Good morning. Welcome to focus 580. This is our telephone talk program. My name's David Inge. Glad to have you with us this morning. Who were the first Americans and where did they come from. Some scientists think that 90 500 year old skeleton that was found in Washington State back in 1996 might help answer those questions. It was found near Kennewick Washington and so came to be called Kennewick Man was one of the oldest skeletons ever found in North America but virtually from the time that was found. Kennewick man has been the center of controversy. Native American tribes in the area laid claim to the remains under something called the Native American graves protection and repatriation act arguing that this was one of their ancestors and he should not be studied. He should be re buried. The government agreed. However some scientists argued that a great deal of knowledge would be lost if they did not have at least some opportunity to study these remains and so they went to court and now almost five years later the fate of Kennewick Man is still. Resolved

will be talking this morning about all of this with James chatters. He's written a book entitled ancient encounters Kennewick Man and the first American sees an archaeologist and also paleo ecologist. He's founder of Applied paleo science a firm that specializes in forensic and archaeological consulting. He also is the deputy coroner for Benton County Washington which is how he became involved with Kennewick Man and actually had the opportunity as one of the few people who had the opportunity to see and look at the remains. He's also currently an adjunct associate professor of research at Central Washington University and the book that we mention ancient encounters published by Simon and Schuster. It's out now and we'll be talking about this tangled story this morning with James chatters and as we do questions of course are welcome the number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4

5 5 3 3 3 WRAL toll free 800 2 2 2. W-why lo. Mr. Jaggers Hello. Hi how are you doing. I'm good thanks and thanks very much for talking with us this morning sure. Glad to be here. Kennewick Man was found by a couple of college students quite by accident. They found these bones and of course because there was I guess the possibility that this could be a crime. The coroner was notified and you went along and that was how you first happened to set eyes on Kenwick man. I pretty much I was called in because I do that but identifications for the coroner. That's my role. Their bones are found. Are they human if they're human. Who are they going to die for. And the. Was it was it your initial thought or at what point did you come to feel that before you really knew a great deal about it that in fact this was not this person was not recently deceased but probably had been there at least for a while.

Well after that. Couple of days I've been cleaning the skeleton up and I found a gray object imbedded in the pelvis and I actually healed inside the pelvis and after X-rays and CAT scans it was able to see that it was a stone spear point that inside. And that spear point has a long time span and not only in North America but other parts of the world and so it it didn't clear up who he was and where I was from but it certainly raised the question of whether he was ancient extremely ancient or modern. So we ran a radiocarbon date on a man about months after the bones that been found learnt that he was roughly 95 hundred years old. So apparently when when the word got out about this final I guess this was actually before you had done the radiocarbon date. One of the tribes or maybe more than one of the tribes in particular one though that was that lived and sort of had claim to this place where the skeleton was found. Came forward and said as has been said before they said look this is this is one of our people and what we should do here is

immediately re bury him. And they went to the Army Corps of Engineers. This area was under their jurisdiction. And it's and made that climb and the Corps said well yeah that seems to be the case and so the bones they then they came to you and took the bones away from you and that was the last you sock it away man. Well pretty much yeah. The. The the Umatilla trial which is when you're talking about was already making claims on the bones the day after they were found. Simply because they came from the river they had to be there and we were insistent on completing our investigation because it wasn't immediately clear that that was the case and it still is of course not clear that that's the case. But the land that the bones were found on his own since the title by the Corps of Engineers. So they have jurisdiction and it's covered by federal law. So once we had the radiocarbon date back and

then the travel claims became rather strident and Cork stepped in and four days later and and to control the bones since that time I've actually seen the bones once I was dug out of the Smithsonian and I went in and and inventory the skeleton before it was moved from one holding look. To another that was what is now three years ago and he he is one of the people who is a party to this you're not a party to this lawsuit but he is one of those right I'm not a party to the lawsuit because I had some opportunity to study and the lawsuit is over the right to study and that would tend to confuse the issue so much. So was it when you got that back the radiocarbon dating it said that if that Kennewick Man was more than 9000 years old was that were you surprised. Well I was one of the possibilities. But yes I was quite surprised. I had never expected it to be not only in the rain the older range of possibilities but outside the older range in the old direction I thought it might be between five and 9000 years old

because at spear point I was fairly common at that time period in the northwest. But I want to came out 500 years older that was. That was a significant surprise but apparently it was also one of the confusing interesting perplexing things also about Kennewick Man was that when you took a look at the skeleton it was apparently fairly obvious that he didn't. He didn't look like the native people who live in the northwest now right to take one look at him and it's like oh well you're not from around here are you. So perhaps he was but not recently. He's very different. He's. We conduct comparisons between man and other ancient Americans and all modern people and found that they don't resemble modern folks. Period. They're really very different. And. Some of the people they're the farthest from in their in their characteristics are white American Indians and who know one of the things that you did as people have seen some

reconstructions like this in the you can take a skull and you based upon certain points of the skull then you can determine what the musculature over that overlay that would look like and then you can determine what. From there you can actually make a person and apparently get a reasonable approximation of what the person looked like. If if you have their skull. I think the bone structure underneath our faces dictates to a very great extent what our faces look like. It's there it's the primary controlling factor. And if a person doesn't carry a great deal of extra weight you can get a very close rendition of what the human being looks like and there are some folks who are good at it some things aren't but some of the people who are skilled at this can actually produce an individual who. Will take on a modern skull you know they'll make a model of the skull of a living person using a CAT scan and then produce a skull from that. Put a face on it and

tell the facial reconstruction of the Cape. Reconstruct this face please. Does it come compared to the living individual and can be extremely close. So our muscles are attached to the bones the muscles for the underlying. Structure of the face. You put little tissue over the top and you are so based upon that reconstruction. If we went looking for somebody who who would look like Kennewick Man Where might we find that person. Well we'd have a hard time finding anyone to really look that much like him but the people who most closely resemble Kennewick Man the other early Americans are Polynesian and and the people of Japan I knew were folks that occupied Japan before the expansion of Korean farmers into the southern Japanese island about twenty three hundred years ago. And they're extremely different in their their physical appearance from Japanese. You would not imagine that that's where they were from if you saw them walking on the street.

So how important when it became obvious that that Kennewick Man was as old as he was and based on his physical characteristics the fact that there were a lot of interesting questions about Well who exactly this man was and where did he come from. How did he end up being where he was. How important a find was this. It's extremely important. He's should be looked on as a national treasure. We have two individuals older than 9000 years ago in North America. Skeletons are nearly completed Kennewick man and a mummy from a cave in Nevada. One is spirit cave. That's the only folks we have from the earliest times. And they're not even the earliest times and there are probably 6000 years removed from the first arrivals but they're the closest we're going to get. And each one of those skeletons tells us not only what their earliest people looked like what their body morphology was but it also gives us a real intimate peek into the nature of their lives. And that's the only way we have getting that peek

is by looking at people's skeletons in their art. Access to tools that they make the food that they ate. Give us some indication of the nature of their lives. They don't really tell us tell us what it was like to be them. Maybe I should introduce Again our guest We're talking with James chatters. He is an archaeologist and also paleo ecologist He's a founder of Applied paleo science which is a firm that specializes in forensic and archaeological consulting. He's also adjunct associate professor of research at Central Washington University and he's the deputy coroner for Benton County Washington and he's written a book that we're talking about the book is titled ancient encounters Kennewick Man and the first Americans published by Simon and Schuster questions are welcome. Three three three WRAL toll free 800 1:58. Well let's talk about the Native American graves protection and repatriation act because that that seems to be a central question here. What is in the intent and of and as you say almost immediately. When Kennewick Man was found

one one tribe in particular said that this is this is on the land. Traditionally we've been. So we're saying that this is one of our forebears and that they're they make this argument that Native Americans have been making for some time now and that's why we have this law saying that the graves of their ancestors had been routinely desecrated and that what should be done with remains like this is that they immediately should be reburied and so they make this argument that says you know you wouldn't like it much if we went to the cemetery and dug up your great grandparents and put them on display well and where we think that that's what's happened to our ancestors and they're in museums and they're in university anthropology departments and they're on display and that's wrong. So that this stuff ought to be if it can be established that that people now today are related to them then those remains ought to be returned to them and then they you know treat them and in keeping with their culture and and reburying them. So that's essentially. The argument

and I think you though and the scientist are involved in this lawsuit say of Kennewick Man is a special case that the Native American graves protection repatriation act. We wasn't intended to apply to something like this right when half of the congressmen have told us so how well how did so how do we weigh. I guess this is the question is how do we weigh these arguments and particularly the there one made by Native Americans that say look you know this We should mean we shouldn't be messing around with the stuff that shouldn't be studied. We should treat them with respect and it should go back into the ground. A lot of ways of treating people with respect. And when they're now nectar is a well-intentioned law and it's the law of a sort that we actually need to have on the books. Because graves were being desecrated and still are occasionally in some places. And that's certainly wrong to be going about that. But it was intended to apply to recent

skeletal material that was from known cemeteries and actually its main impetus was to return the great skeletons of known individuals actually named individuals to their families. There were some practices in the 19th century conducted mainly by the US Army that were not particularly are considered particularly moral in our present day society. And I think for society they are probably a little questionable even then. But these claims that any skeletons from the Americas is automatically subject to claim by one modern American Indian group or another is not what the law is for and what it does. What that misuse of the law does is it denies us the opportunity to learn who the first Americans actually were. And if that denies future generations of kids who are of American Indian descent of deprives them of knowing the

full nature of who was in this continent or even knowing something about what their ancestors lives were like and we hear the claims a lot from it. The Indian activists that well if you would if you archaeologist want to know what life was like in the past want to just ask the elders. Well you have to remember the elders are in their 50s and 60s and this is not 2001. They were born in the 1940s. They didn't live by the old ways. They don't really know what the old ways were because they didn't participate in them and cultures change through time rather rapidly. And consequently the folks who were alive beginning in 1940 have no understanding of what life was like even fifteen hundred years ago thousand years ago even less time. So what Nagra was intended to do is to reunite people with their families and give tribes control over the cemeteries that were clearly there. It was not intended for this purpose at all.

And apparently when one when one approaches this if someone could come forth and they would make claim to some particular remains you would start by trying to establish some sort of actual familial relationship. And if you can't have that then you would say well then you would need to establish some sort of cultural tie. And if you can establish that it seems that the default position is that well if this is was found on land that traditionally has been where your people have lived that's apparently in the eyes of the law good enough at to make a claim. Right and they're saying it regardless of how old it is. Yeah it's like. Well if you like modern. Europeans length claim to. Anybody who was in. Spain. For example any time in the past like maybe 600000 years ago or so. Actually we're not quite that old there yet but there are human remains there are humanoid remains there two hundred thousand years old.

No one is claiming them as a direct ancestor. Nobody is making a religious claim that they should bury those remains. We do see a similar thing going on however in Israel where the fundamentalist sects there are the ultra-Orthodox protest any time human skeletons are found and then to be excavated even if those skeletons are Neanderthals. But we don't even know to be the same species as we are. So when you make a claim on the basis of geography you're denying the existence of historical processes that have been underway ever since that person died. One of those historical process is this folks move around a great deal. One of the tester that you wanted to do early on when the carbon dating was done was to do a DNA test. Right and there is a way that you can you can test for a particular kind of DNA mitochondrial DNA that would actually tell you if there

are living descendants of Kennewick man and would tell you who they are and this would give you. That would definitely say if there's somebody who has a familial tie and would tell you where it was this man had come from or perhaps at least given give you a pretty good idea. And you know that really the story quite that way. Well OK I mean I don't really see any has passed from female a child yes man being a male wouldn't have this mitochondrial DNA DNA on anybody. But what it does mitochondrial DNA is found in the small organelles are a little little Basically energy processing structures in our cells and it has its own inheritance process. And it's passed along in the in the cytoplasm of the egg. And when. Because it's so abundant. There are many many mitochondria in these cells so there's a tremendous amount of mitochondrial DNA and the chance of it surviving in bonus fairly good as long as the bone isn't undergoing some horrible chemical processes

and. It's possible to extract some of that mitochondrial DNA multiply it and then determine what group it belongs to. And that doesn't mean what tribe it means what female lineage it belongs to and the female lineages go back to the old world. So it's possible to to see what lineage he might belong to. And if we're dealing with a modern person we can tie him to. Is he likely to be American in the end is he likely to be European as he liked to be African because they have very different mitochondrial patterns and most repopulation. It's not possible to take an ancient person and determine who he's related to now. Ok well and in any case that test was never done. No attempts were made later but they didn't use Bono's really suitable for the process. The best material for extracting DNA is teeth because that the dent in the teeth is extremely dense and can protect the DNA from destruction.

They allowed the DNA experts to work with fragments of ribs and bits of ham bone and they're really quite thin and the chance of the DNA surviving there is pretty slim especially over ninety five hundred years. When I had the skeleton in my hands I thought I didn't treat our X-ray to the teeth so that they would be available for study at a later time. And unfortunately they didn't allow him to use those for reasons that I don't understand. Well that would be it would. Though pred provided again part of the answer and I was certainly aware and they're all things down there and it would say whether or not American Indians and this population or this individual's population came from the same genetic route did they descend from the same sub population of humanity. That's about as narrow as it could go simply in part because as I said again man didn't have mitochondrial DNA descendants.

Yeah well then if that if you had that bit of information would that settle the discussion about who should have control over his remains or would that it would still be with the same argument be going on. Yeah it wouldn't solve it now it would it would add to our knowledge about their earliest people in America but it would not solve the question of a relationship. And really the question of relationship from the scientific point of view is moot. We're there so much time between the death of this man and the lives of the people who are now making claim to him that at most they might share. See that one over to the four hundred fifty is the power of the genetic material with him. That's not very much. That's not very much shared heritage. Not enough certainly to make a claim of ownership to the to it to 4.50 of power by the way as is way up there in the tens of

billions. So it's not a very extensive relationship to be talking about. The this court case you know has been going on for what about four more years maybe five five years. Yeah five years coming up this October. So why is it that this is taken so long to be resolved. Well in part the government dragged their feet. I was a big piece of it. They said Well now we're not going to let you guys study her they made first first claim was well these individuals don't have standing. To make a claim it is law. And it took about six months to get that result and then it was well. We don't know enough to make a decision here the judge says you have to go back and study this you didn't make a decision prop. have to go back in and revisit this and really actually analyze the evidence to determine if Kennewick Man is related to these modern people. And so they took three years to do that. And it's just been one delaying action after another on the part of the government.

So do would do you expect that then sometime soon over the next few months maybe that they were finally he says well they now are supposed to hear from the judge and with his final decision on the case and how long has it been any day now you're expecting to hear something. Well the court case was heard in court the 19th and 20th of June. So we're just two months down the line here and we knew it would be a while he told us it would be a while because the case is so complex and and it's a it's a landmark case as far as this law is concerned. So this judge doesn't want to make a snap decision that's going to be overturned on appeal. You know I thought Look at all the evidence make sure he's covered every base that could possibly be covered before he puts this thing out. And he's really a very good judge is he is really astute. Another I guess I gather another wrinkle came up in this in this case. Early in August when someone else weighed in on this this was someone who who was of Samoan descent who said well now I can like man is he's he's Polynesian So

he's part of my people so we think we should use we think there mange to be turned over to us. And apparently what they what they said they would do what this man said they would do he would allow some limited testing and then the remains would go to a museum and I guess later on would be buried in American Samoa. You know here this is a fellow who had previously put forward the theory that it's that polynesians came from South America. And the fact that the earliest Americans somewhat resemble not very much by the way they somewhat resemble Polynesian and certainly more like Polynesians than anyone else that. Supported his theory. So he's been making reversing it and making the claim that this kind of man is Polynesian like therefore that proves his point that he must be an ancestor. It's been an extremely interesting case from that point of view that it's brought

out so many rather unusual points of view. But it's also been extremely difficult thing to be part of when the big skeleton turned in. I thought it was because his physical characteristics weren't like American Indians and it looked like he was a fairly recent individual going to chance to study this one for a while because the claims on him will be to learn about him probably Mr. Earley can go pioneer and be somebody dug up in the lore of the neighborhood turned out to be a rather different neighborhood rec got rather large. Still interesting. But instead of it being an exciting process it's been more of a painful process to be part of. Because of not being able to really fully understand how it's an individual has to tell us we're past the midpoint of this part of focus 580 And again I should introduce our guest We're

speaking with Dr. James chatters. He is an archaeologist. He has his own firm which is firm and specializes in forensic an archaeological consulting It's called applied to Paleo science. He's also an adjunct associate professor of research at Central Washington University and is a Washington state we're talking about and his deputy coroner for Benton County Washington and he's the author of this book ancient encounters Kennewick Man and the first Americans published by Simon and Schuster if it's in the bookstores now if you want to read it. Questions are also certainly welcome. Three three three. W I L L toll free 800 1:58 wy a lot. Well given that that some people have there's been a lot of discussion about. The Native American graves protection and repatriation act and what it was intended to do. And the argument that a find like Kennewick man is old enough and and unique enough so that it shouldn't apply. Are there any people in Washington in Congress for example talking about

revisiting the way that the act was written and tried to make some changes. Well actually there were there was a Doc Hastings who is the congressman for the district in which kind of man was found put forward. An amendment an act PRA that the far hasn't passed out of committee. But he's sort of biding his time. And what that simply does is it sort of eliminates the geographic claim and requires a. Fairly strong degree of evidence be brought forward in order for claims to be made it's sort of it makes the standards the same as they are for anyone else. Or closer to what they are for anyone has his non-Indian to make a claim on a skeleton. So. I would be happier if it had some sort of time limit to it but that would be hard to do I think. Cultures. The last time cultures changed in America.

In almost every place in the country was around 2000 years ago. So it's what was no more than 2000 years ago some are as recent as 700 years and it's within that span of time that you could reasonably say that people are culturally related with modern folks. Before that it's it's a pretty tenuous claim to be making. But it. Can be hard to get support for doing that I think was a where's Kennewick man today. Today Ken McMahon is in Seattle at the Burke Museum itself Washington State Museum. Sitting in the basement in a box. And it's locked up. And biding his time I guess. I'm actually now. Working for I'm a principal scientist with a consulting firm in the Seattle area now. In addition to those other three things you were talking of. And so kind of matches right across the lake from me.

Early on I think that there was some concern about whether their remains were being properly stored so that they would be preserved. Are you still concerned about that or you think that it's the now that they're doing what they should be doing to make sure that there's no further deterioration. Well I think they're they're making an effort there. I certainly making a strong show of it. But the bridge museum had some problems last year they had their air conditioning system cost the pipes to break and they flood the basement which of course was a skeleton and so we're not absolutely sure they're secure as they might be in a place above ground somewhere. But I think they're doing a fairly reasonable job of taking care of it. One thing that was interesting that came up recently actually right after the day after the final hearing on the case you might recall from the book that. Parts of both legs came up missing.

Yes. And the large parts make like bones a foot long missing from each leg and I was one of the folks fingered for that and so was the coroner. Well the day after. And after five years of waiting in the day after the final hearing suddenly the boss turned up. They found him in the sheriff's office and get away. Well they claim to have found him. You know but they weren't in the place they claim to have found them. They turned up a day when things were being moved from one place to another and they were never shown to the coroner until they removed the second place. So I'm not sure that they were ever there. The box that they turned up in was a box I'd sent to the coroner the day before you know it man. And in it were the bones of other individuals found about a mile and a half away. The bunch had never been in that box to start with. So I'm. I'm a little. And there's another bag in there within that that doesn't fit any description I know of

anything I sent. With the final with the skeleton proper still it's a little bit unclear as to what happened then. Well I suppose that you were somewhat relieved because the FBI was looking at this and that if there was the possibility that there might have been some some criminal charges pressed against you or or anybody else because they thought that someone might have actually filched the field these bones that turned up missing. Right well I was able to turn that away a long time ago and I took videotapes of the skeleton ripe for packing in a box and I had five witnesses to it being packed and carried away. But they were bothering the coroner for a while now even searched his lockup. And the FBI was unable to find the bones there and that's supposedly where they turned up. So I know it's a reason why things are a little suspicious even the FBI did a terrible job. Who knows. Or something strange going on there.

But that's one that sounds like it. Is not going to be resolved probably we don't. You well I don't really ever find out what happened. You know you've got the case closed. They've got they've got much more pressing things to deal with like their reputation. Then to bother with small bones. You know when you talk about the fact that you think any day now that the judge is going to have a decision you know no matter what happens here do you think it's likely this is it would be appealed and then it would. This would good could go on for who knows how long will it. If the government wins remember this is a case between the scientists and the U.S. government it's not satisfying in the end. It has to do with the interpretation of the law and if the court finds and in the government's favor it will be appealed by the scientists. We know that for certain but I don't know whether the Bush administration is going to chase after it or not. If they lose.

They may or they may not. The Clinton administration would have but we don't know where all the Bush administration well enough at this point to know what they are going to or not. We have a caller to talk with when we do that in the civil way line number one. Right. Here. Hello how you doing. They are going with me into this and we you know I wept kind of watched this from a distance too. I guess the question comes to my mind is is what compelling reason do you offer to these Indian tribes to study the skeleton. I mean is it absolutely essential that you have it or you know what why don't you just work on a different project. Well we don't really have other skeletons to work on but that's one of age. This is one of the very few individuals who comes to us from a very distant past from a people who may no longer be around.

Is the information so valuable that that cannot be found a different way. The only way we can get a sense of what these people were like and what their lives were like through their directly through their skeletons. Each human skeleton is a diary of the nature of a person's life style of life and individual experiences of artifacts don't really tell you what those lives were like. Remains of houses which we haven't found for that time period yet but don't really tell you either. And the interest in this is actually not just among scientists It's among many members of the public I've heard from a lot of them by e-mail and telephone over the years. But it's also international everyone who come. Since we've had people come in from from Korea Japan most of the European countries Australia South America because they're interested in the US just as they were interested in The Iceman from the Alps. This is one of the few messengers from a long distant time ago that can tell us a little more about the nature of the human story. That's why it's

important. And what you're making a presumption of by the nature of your question and in part by the tone of your question is that the Indians somehow have a right to this and that hasn't been established yet. It doesn't sound to me like they really have to to prove their point because actually they do. Well you know if you're under the law they do and. But but why would you presume they shouldn't have to prove their point. Isn't everyone else required to prove ownership of a body before they make a claim to it. Well not necessarily. Yes they are actually. Yeah. In order to make a claim to recover a skeleton as a relative for burial you have to establish very clearly that you're that relationship a relation of that person. You can't just take them by by assertion. You know I guess the point of my question is you know with this court battle worth

the information that you're after. And is the information so valuable that you know that that it's going to make a profound change change in in these people's lives or even our lives. You know and and so whenever you you fight so hard but you for something just you know just for curiosity sake that's not a compelling reason it has to be something profound and and it has to be of such a nature that you know a bit that it has a a an effect on society or these people that you know that if you missed that chance then then there's going to be some consequences of it that you know are primarily negative consequences. And it just sounds like the reason that you're offering. You know it tells me that this information's not absolutely essential that we know it. And why fight tooth and nail on this one particular

check. Well we're not talking about one skeleton here I mean in discussing I don't mean we're discussing one individual but the case isn't really just about the one skeleton. That's kind of a locust or losing the fossils to the American human fossils one after another because we've got a movement that there's an urban ethnic identity movement out there that's attempting to establish it the eternity on the land. And that's why we're hearing claims for the early skeletons when I was in my earlier career and we found human skeletons and they were recent We always call the local tribes and we never had any issue we didn't need to nag. In a sense in the areas I've worked in because we've always dealt as if such a law existed. And the tribes never really requested older skeletons if they didn't know the cemetery they came from or why they weren't quite sure they were theirs. They were just curious about them. They weren't claiming them. It's a difference in politics right now that we're seeing. But you're what you're making an assumption is that that this isn't of fundamental importance to us.

And as far as we're concerned it is of fundamental importance. This is the this is the source of knowledge that we have of the field of knowledge that we've chosen to dedicate our lives to. And we're seeing that the window to that knowledge is being rapidly closed. And we don't have a problem with it being close with the recent individuals where there's a relationship no problem whatsoever in fact I've done a lot of repatriation work myself in support of of Indian tribes claims. But when we're into the long distant past this is my wife and my daughter's relative to my wife and daughter of Indian descent. If there is to it see if it's an ancestor of American Indians it's theirs to and we're not even sure that that's the case. We're dealing with Indians who are physically individuals in the earliest among the earliest Americans who are in all respects in the genetics of their teeth and the morphology of their bodies and the characteristics of their faces and in the way they behaved completely different

from later populations. There is it isn't clear that these people have any descendants whatsoever. If that's the case then if we deny if scientists aren't allowed to go and investigate them and aren't allowed to learn from them what the nature of those people was from those bones we lose the opportunity to give a place in history to a people who are extinct. And I don't think that's a moral thing to do. We just have about five minutes left. I hope the caller forgive me because I have another couple. Other people are trying one trying to get at least one more if not both. I will go next to Herb Bana. This is lie number two. Yes good morning. I do agree with you with this it are a with with your expert because I think it is of vital importance. I think I have a question though and it seems to me from watching public television thank goodness for public television.

There were programmes about the trade that went on during the last ice age along the north along the North Pole and that the Ice Age you know really had moved quite far south. The ice of the ice age is quite far south. And I wonder if you have thought about the people who were part of that circular trade when the last ice age was here. Well you caught me there. I'm not sure. Are you speaking of the Little Ice Age. But 10000 years ago it is my understanding that you know and this is not a field I study that just things I've heard from you know reading and from listening to public television. There is one idea out there by Dennis Chan for this for

the Smithsonian and Bruce Bradley who's a stone tool expert in Colorado that the earliest one of the earliest known technologies anywhere the tool technology in America has strong similarities to what's called the Solutrean culture of Spain and southeastern France southwestern France. That's a very controversial idea. Some people really rail against it because they say what you're claiming Europeans came to America first well. Whatever the descent where the ancestors of Americans are of course it should be relatively immaterial to us we should want to know who they were. But other than that I don't know about it. The train that you're speaking of at that early time I have heard about that I recall. Oh yeah let's go to champagne here line 3 and I'll hire you. I want to say I agree that things should be studied however. Do you feel that maybe the bones of the Kennewick individual should be reinterred. I think that's Personally I think that the main argument of

the Indian rights people is is not so much that you know it's their direct ancestor but that just as it's not respectful to display people and if you can. Comment on the pour ice age guy that they found on my blog. I think you know you talk about you've been talking about the territorial rights of these remains will the French and Italians or you know fight it out over who gets the body from the Swiss. I guess so the Italians in the and the and Austrian founder right on the Italian Austrian border and they had been arguing over who gets to control it in part. You know how do you feel about the reinterment and I'll just leave it at that. Fine. Well that's one thing I cannot delve into in the book a little bit. Actually right at the end that my feelings on this case are really quite mixed. On the one hand just from a personal standpoint I got to know this individual rather intimately and have a good deal of sympathy for the

way he lived his life and the amount of pain he went through during his life and in part. I wouldn't mind seeing him at rest also. From a scientific standpoint I have a very different perspective and that is we need to learn as much as we can in order to understand the nature of our species and the history of our species. But I think there's a third position too and it's a moral position. And it's the one that kind of finally holds sway and I mixed emotions inside me and that is that these do seem to be a people who aren't in it around anymore and I think we respect them best by learning the most we can about them. So I end up coming down with maybe better keep him and let future generations learn all I can from him so he can have his place. The boy we have a couple minutes left and probably not really enough time to discuss this point but maybe I just ask real quick that what it is now we're thinking about how it is that humans came to the Americas.

There was I guess for a long time this idea that. That there was a point where things were where were frozen at the place where there was the closest contact between the the Old World and the new where people literally could have walked could have walked here and then from that point spread out and now it seems that we're thinking that there were there perhaps were a number of waves of people moving in to the Americas and also from different places that everybody didn't come over that didn't come that way. If the initial idea of the idea is still to wait for a long time in a raid it was that people came through the central the center of the Bering land bridge which is a thousand mile wide landmass connected to Siberia and Alaska and that they were big game hunters that lived on the tundra and went after elephants and bison and that sort of thing. It's beginning to look like that's not the case in fact it's becoming fairly clear that that wasn't the case in part because

the area they would have had to come through an absolute wilderness in the barren landscape. But also because these earliest people that we're seeing don't resemble the central Siberians or the Northeast Siberians that they're supposed to look like. Rather they resemble peaceable people from coastal Asia people who now occupy coastal Asia and did for a good twenty thousand years in the past. It's beginning to look like that migration came by way of the coastline perhaps in multiple waves of immigration not just one. And that the immigration through central Siberia was the last one to come in that it's the one that gets the distinct Siberian like characteristics to American Indians particularly in the northwest and the plains. There are also some suggestions as I mentioned earlier of folks coming across the North Atlantic around the rim of the ice because it was a fairly productive zone with such things as flightless birds and seals fish. Many different kinds of sources of food along that path. On that ice margin.

So it's possible that people may have come from Europe in part as well so that may be a very complex picture of the Peopling rather than that very simple single migration one. Well there we will have to stop because we are at the end of the time. Dr. Jennifer thanks very much for talking with us today we appreciate them. Great pleasure. Our guest James chatters and the book if you'd like to read it once again is titled ancient encounters Kennewick Man and the first Americans and is published by Simon and Schuster and is in bookstores now. Programming here on AM 580 as made possible in part by a grant from the thrifty nickel distributed each Thursday in over 100 towns and east central Illinois on the web at W W W done through the nickel dot com the thrifty nickel. It's a good little paper later today on the afternoon magazine. A look at the Human Rights Movement. Father Robert Drennen is Celeste Cohen's guest following one o'clock news. He's a priest a lawyer and a former member of Congress whose latest book is the mobilization of shame a world view of human rights. You can hear that in the 1:00 o'clock hour of the afternoon

magazine today.