It’s been called the most important ancient human skeleton ever unearthed in North America. But “Kennewick Man”–so named because it was found in 1996 along the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Wash.–is also one of the most mysterious such skeletons.
Scientists have offered lots of opinions about the 9,500-year-old skeleton, but no one could figure out for sure who he was and where he came from. That’s about to change, thanks to DNA analysis of the skeleton now under way in Denmark.
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“Questions of ethnicity and ancestry really are at the center of it,” Lape told KUOW. “It relates to this long history of conflict between archaeologists and physical anthropologists and Native American groups… And I think it also relates to the public role of science in our society and how we communicate scientific results.”
