An 8-Year Fight Ends Over a 9,200-Year-Old Man

By ELI SANDERS

Published: July 20, 2004
 

EATTLE, July 19 - The ending of a long legal battle between Northwest Indian tribes and scientists last week is expected soon to put Kennewick Man, a 9,200-year-old skeleton, into the hands of anthropologists hoping for powerful clues to the mystery of who first populated the Americas.

The skeleton, named Kennewick Man after the southeastern Washington town near where it was found in 1996, contains more than 350 bones and bone fragments and is one of the oldest and most complete sets of human remains uncovered in North America. The accidental discovery of its skull by two young men walking along the Columbia River caused a sensation, not only because of its age but also because some features did not resemble those of modern American Indians, as would have been expected then.