Senate Bill Calls For Study Of 9,300-Year-Old ‘Man’

A bill passed by the U.S. Senate calls for additional scientific study of a 9,300-year-old skeleton found on the banks near Kennewick, frustrating Indian attempts to bury the bones.

The bill passed this week calls for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make the skeleton - known as Kennewick Man - available to scientists for studies. Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., added the amendment to the Senate’s energy and water appropriations bill.

The remains were found on Corps-managed land and the agency had planned to return them for burial to Indian tribes, which claimed the bones as those of an ancestor.

But the Corps rescinded its decision after a group of scientists sued in U.S. District Court in Portland for the right to study the bones’ origins.

“The Kennewick bones are of monumental importance to the understanding of American prehistory and provide invaluable information about who the earliest Americans were and where they came from,” Gorton said.

The remains are the oldest and most complete ever found in Oregon or Washington. They were discovered last summer on the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick. The skeleton, with a spearpoint in its pelvis, originally was thought to be that of an early white settler because of its Caucasoid-like features.

Radiocarbon dating showed the skeleton was 9,300-9,600 years old.

Final approval of Gorton’s amendment will be decided in a conference committee, Gorton press aide Melissa Dollaghan said.