Tribe Wants To Do Own Excavation Of Burial Site

An Oregon Indian tribe has proposed its own excavation plan after an anthropologist sought to dig a trench near where a 9,200-year-old skeleton was found.

Umatilla Tribe spokesman Paul Minthorn said the excavation plan by Washington State University anthropologist Gary Huckleberry is flawed.

“We’re not proposing to do any work, but in the event that work needs to be done, this is how it should be done,” Minthorn said. “It really doesn’t matter who does it - it’s the methodology that’s important.”

Huckleberry in late August asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to let him and a team of scientists excavate a trench in Columbia Park to search for clues near the site where the Kennewick Man skeleton was found in July 1996.

Minthorn said Huckleberry’s plan does not adequately protect the site, where other remains may be buried.

“Our preference is that nothing be done, that no digging be done, that the area be left alone,” he said.

The tribe’s plans call for digging up to five test holes - 6 inches at a time - rather than a 50- to 100-foot trench as proposed by Huckleberry. If artifacts are discovered, soil would be removed in 10-centimeter layers.

Huckleberry proposed testing the site with small holes to determine whether it contains archaeological deposits. He promised to avoid such areas with the trench, which would be dug by backhoe.

Huckleberry said he welcomes the tribe’s scientists to join his project. A cooperative effort could help resolve the controversial case, he said.

“They can work with us and collect the same data, then write their interpretation,” he said. “It might solve the impasse.”

Meanwhile, the corps will decide whether anyone gets to dig at the park site on the Columbia River.