 The
U.S. Interior Department on Monday said a controversial 9,000-year-old
human skeleton found in Washington state belongs to five Indian
tribes who say he is an ancestor who should rest in peace rather
than be studied by scientists.
DNA tests
failed to fix the racial origin of the skeleton, dubbed Kennewick
Man after the town in southern Washington state near where it
was found in the Columbia River, leaving geography and tribal
folklore to prove the bones should go to the Indians, the agency
said.
``Our investigation
was to be a searching one and we have left no stone unturned ...
that would cast light on this issue,'' said John Leshy, U.S. solicitor
of the interior, in a teleconference with journalists.
A group of
eight scientists had sued to stop the Indian tribes from claiming
the 380 pieces of bone because tribal representatives vowed to
rebury them, precluding further study on one of the earliest known
human skeletons in the United States.
An attorney
for the scientists, Alan Schneider, vowed to appeal should a federal
judge in Portland, Oregon, back the government's decision to award
the tribes the bones.
Dubbed ``Ancient
One'' by the tribes, the bones are among the oldest ever found
in North America and could shed light on the origin of the continent's
first residents, long thought to have emigrated from Asia or Eurasia,
perhaps by way of Alaska.
``Our original
lawsuit challenged the government's decision to grant custody
to the tribe, based on insufficient evidence,'' Schneider told
Reuters. ``They don't have any more evidence now.''
Under the
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
of 1990 Kennewick Man is considered Native American because he
predates documented European settlement, despite some dubious
claims that he was a wayward Viking.
Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt said the bones were ''culturally affiliated'' with
area tribes and that the Indian Claims Commission found the federal
park on which they were found aboriginal land -- at one point
housing various tribes.
Government
officials concede that they have no firm evidence to support either
conclusion, but neither have they found any evidence to outweigh
the current geographic location of the tribes and their oral histories.
``Neither
(conclusion) is entirely crystal clear,'' Leshy said.
The Interior
Department said bone fragments sent to Yale University, University
of Michigan and University of California-Davis for tests failed
to yield DNA for analysis, a practice the tribes deem highly offensive.
The bones
have been held in Seattle at the University of Washington's Burke
Museum for the last two years, technically under the custody of
the Army Corps of Engineers.
|
