Fragments Missing From Kennewick Man Army Corps Inventory Of Ancient Skeleton Shows Pieces Of Leg Bone Are Gone
Some leg bones from the 9,200-year-old skeleton of Kennewick Man appear to be missing, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers revealed Tuesday.
This is the latest twist in the bizarre saga of bones that some scientists believe may be the earliest evidence of Caucasian humans in North America.
Missing are several bone fragments from both femur, or upper leg, bones, Corps spokesman Dutch Meier said.
The corps has advised a federal judge in Oregon of the discrepancy, because the bones are the subject of a lawsuit over whether they can be studied.
“At this point, the U.S. is looking into this matter,” Meier said. He said the corps and the Justice Department are investigating.
The discrepancy was discovered in late February, the corps said, when a corps researcher compared a November 1997 corps inventory of the bones with an inventory provided in 1996 by James Chatters, a private archaeologist who originally studied the bones before they were confiscated by the government.
Chatters had turned over his notes and photographs of the bones, showing the femur fragments, to the corps on Sept. 5, 1996, the corps said.
When the sealed container was opened five days later, a representative of the Umatilla Indian tribe who was present noticed that the femur fragments described in Chatters’ notes were not in the box of remains, the corps said.
“Since the skeleton was nearly complete, the absence of the fragments of the femur bones was not considered significant then,” the corps said in a news release.
Then, in November 1997, the corps’ own archaeologist inventoried the bones. Last month, a corps researcher compared the original Chatters inventory with the 1997 inventory and discovered the loss, the corps said.
Chatters on Tuesday night said all of the bones were included when he turned Kennewick Man over to the corps.
“If there is some discrepancy between my records and photos and what they currently have, it would have had to have occurred (after) they left my possession,” Chatters said.
He urged the corps to take another inventory, saying they may have overlooked the bone fragments. The smallest of the bone pieces was about three inches square, he said.
Chatters said there is a possibility he glued some of the femur bones back together in order to take accurate measurements. His memory is not clear dating back to mid-1996, he said.
But that could be the reason his initial notes indicate each femur bone is in three pieces, while the later corps inventory notes there are two pieces of each femur, Chatters said.
“What they need to do is go back and look at the bones again,” Chatters said.
Attorney Michael Clinton, who represents members of a pagan religion who claim the bones may belong to an ancestor, said the loss is evidence of continued corps incompetence.
“Jim Chatters is the most honest individual you could ever meet,” Clinton said. “What they are trying to do is lay their ineptness and mishandling of the remains on Jim Chatters’ doorstep.”
Kennewick Man’s bones were found in July 1996 in a park along the Columbia River in Kennewick. Because they were found on federal land, the corps confiscated the bones and is storing them at a laboratory in nearby Richland.
Eight scientists are suing the Army Corps for the right to study the remains, which they believe could reveal much about how people first came to North America. Chatters has contended his brief study of the bones found indications that they had Caucasian features.
Representatives of area Indian tribes contend the bones belong to an ancestor and should be returned under a 1990 federal graves protection law.
The Asatru Folk Assembly, a California-based church whose members follow pre-Christian European religions, contend Kennewick Man may be one of their ancestors and have filed a separate lawsuit seeking further study of the bones.
xxxx THE BONES Kennewick Man’s bones were found in July 1996 in a park along the Columbia River in Kennewick.