Editing Kennewick Man (section)

==Scientific initiatives and significance==
===Scientific initiatives===
There have been three major scientific initiatives to study and report on Kennewick Man.<!-- Citation not required. Three paragraphs follow, with the three studies. Please do not make this into a "list" (* bullets) per [[WP:PROSE]] -->

Between 1998 and 2000, the Department of the Interior and National Park Service, in cooperation with the Corps of Engineers, the federal agency responsible for the Kennewick remains, conducted a series of scientific examinations of the remains. Eighteen nationally and internationally recognized scientists and scholars conducted a variety of historical and scientific examinations, analyses, tests, and studies.<ref name="McManamom">{{cite web |url=http://www.nps.gov/archeology/kennewick/index.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070820092634if_/http://www.nps.gov/archeology/kennewick/index.htm |archive-date=August 20, 2007 |title=Kennewick Man |work=NPS Archaeology Program |editor-first=F. P. |editor-last=McManamom |date=May 2004 }}</ref> Nevertheless, the "analysis was quickly suspended by the U.S. government" because of the controversy over custodianship of the remains.{{sfnp|Chatters|2000}}

After the suspension of the government studies, anthropologists sued the government, and in 2002 won the right to study the bones. For the next six years beginning in 2005, Douglas Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution coordinated more than a dozen experts, who analyzed the bones in numerous ways including forensic anthropology, physical anthropology, and isotope chemistry. Their report was published in 2014, in the book titled ''Kennewick Man, The Scientific Investigation of an Ancient American Skeleton''.{{sfnp|Owsley |Jantz |2014}}

In 2015, a paper in ''Nature'' titled "The Ancestry and Affiliations of Kennewick Man" analyzed ancient DNA from Kennewick Man, and determined he is associated with modern day Indians.<ref name="Rasmussen" />

===Scientific significance===
According to ''Time'' magazine, "Scientists have found only about 50 skeletons of such antiquity, most of them fragmentary. Any new find can thus add crucial insight into the ongoing mystery of who first colonized the New World."{{sfnp|Lemonick|Dorfman|2006}}

Since the mid-1990s within the science community, [[Peopling of the Americas#Physical anthropology|"Palaeoamericans" have vied with "Palaeoindians"]] over the identity of the first people of the Americas. "Palaeoamericans" posit the earliest inhabitants are not related to modern day Indians, possibly they were Asians from an extinct lineage, or even from Europe. "Palaeoindians" assert modern Indians are the descendants of the earliest settlers of North America. Kennewick Man, and DNA from other ancient skeletons, has played a significant role in eroding Palaeoamerican theories. Kennewick Man's DNA results mark an "end of a [supposed] non-Indian ancient North America".<ref name="Kakaliqouras">{{cite journal |title=The Repatriation of the Palaeoamericans: Kennewick Man/the Ancient One and the End of a Non-Indian Ancient North America |journal=BJHS Themes |first1=Ann M. |last1=Kakaliqouras |date=2019 |volume=4 |pages=79–98 |doi=10.1017/bjt.2019.9|doi-access=free }}</ref>

The discovery of Kennewick Man, along with other ancient skeletons, has furthered scientific debate over the origin and history of early Native American people.{{sfnp|Custred|2000}} One hypothesis holds that a single source of migration occurred, consisting of hunters and gatherers following large herds of game who wandered across the [[Bering land bridge]]. An alternative hypothesis is that more than one source population was involved in migration immediately following the [[Last Glacial Maximum]] (LGM), which occurred ~22k to ~18k years BP, and that the land migration through Beringia was either preceded by or roughly synchronous with a waterborne migration from coastal Asia.<ref>{{citation|url=http://natural-history.uoregon.edu/sites/default/files/mnch/Erlandson_and_Braje_2011.pdf|author1=Erlandson, J.|author2=Braje, T.|title=From Asia to the Americas by boat? Paleogeography, paleoecology, and stemmedpoints of the northwest Pacific|access-date=April 23, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180919070842/http://natural-history.uoregon.edu/sites/default/files/mnch/Erlandson_and_Braje_2011.pdf|archive-date=September 19, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The similarity of some ancient skeletal remains in the Americas, such as Kennewick Man, to coastal Asian phenotypes is suggestive of more than one migration source.{{how|date=December 2023}}{{sfnp|Preston|2014}}{{sfnp|Custred|2000}}<ref name="Powell"/>{{sfnp|Brace |Brace |Nelson |Qifeng |2014}} Classification of DNA from ancient skeletons such as Kennewick Man and others of similar phenotype may or may not reveal genetic affiliation between them, with either Beringian<ref>{{citation|vauthors=Tamm E, Kivisild T, Reidla M, Metspalu M, Smith DG |title=Beringian Standstill and Spread of Native American Founders|journal=PLOS ONE |volume=2 |issue=9 |pages=e829 |display-authors=etal|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0000829 |pmid=17786201 |pmc=1952074 |year=2007 |bibcode=2007PLoSO...2..829T|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Fagundes">{{cite journal |vauthors=Fagundes NJ, Kanitz R, Eckert R, et al. |title=Mitochondrial population genomics supports a single pre-Clovis origin with a coastal route for the peopling of the Americas|journal=Am. J. Hum. Genet.|volume=82|issue=3|pages=583–92|date=March 2008|pmid=18313026|pmc=2427228|doi= 10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.11.013}}</ref> or coastal Asian<ref>{{citation|author1=Adachi N. |author2=Shinoda K |author3=Umetsu K |author4=Matsumura H. |title=Mitochondrial DNA analysis of Jomon skeletons from the Funadomari site, Hokkaido, and its implication for the origins of Native American, Am J Phys Anthropol. 2010 Mar; 141(3):504–05|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |volume=138 |issue=3 |pages=255–65 |pmid=18951391 |year=2009 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.20923 |s2cid=21953365 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=http://pages.ucsd.edu/~rfrank/class_web/UnivHouse/Kemp%20et%20al.%202007.pdf |first1=Brian M. |last1=Kemp |first2=Ripan S. |last2=Malhi |display-authors=et al. |title=Genetic Analysis of Early Holocene Skeletal Remains From Alaska and its Implications for the Settlement of the Americas |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |volume=132 |number=4 |pages=605–621 |year=2007 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.20543 |pmid=17243155 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150418045340/http://pages.ucsd.edu/~rfrank/class_web/UnivHouse/Kemp%20et%20al.%202007.pdf |archive-date=April 18, 2015 |url-status=live }}{{collapsible list |title=et al. list |titlestyle=color:gray; |expand=y<!--Accessibility issue-->es |hlist=on |Deborah A. Bolnick |E. James Dixon |Jason A. Eshleman
|Terence E. Fifield |[[Timothy H. Heaton]] |John R. Johnson |Brian M. Kemp |Joseph G. Lorenz |Ripan S. Malhi |Cristina Martinez-Labarga |John McDonough |Olga Rickards |David Glenn Smith |[[Rosita Worl]] }}</ref> source populations.

Regardless of the debate over whether there were more than one source of migration following the LGM, Kennewick Man has yielded insight into the marine lifestyle and mobility of early coastal migrants.{{sfnp|Brenner|Dixon|Edgar|Farmer|2014}}

===Owsley study criticisms===
In 2012, [[Burke Museum]] archeologists voiced concern and criticism of the Owsley team's preliminary findings (not published fully until 2014). First, it was noted that no one outside of Owsley's team had an opportunity to examine the Smithsonian's data to see how the team reached its conclusions.{{sfnp|Stang|2012}} Second, the absence of [[peer-review]]ed articles published prior to Owsley unveiling the bones' "secrets" was criticized.{{sfnp|Stang|2012}} Third, Owsley's non-Native argument hinged on the assumption that Kennewick Man's skull was a reliable means of assessing ancestry. This was a "nineteenth-century skull science paradigm", said [[David Hurst Thomas]], a curator at the [[American Museum of Natural History]].<ref>{{cite web |first=Michael |last=Greshko |url=http://www.science20.com/michael_greshko/modern_native_americans_related_to_kennewick_man-156234 |title=Modern Native Americans Related To Kennewick Man |work=science20.com |date=June 20, 2015}}</ref> Skulls are no longer used as the basis for classifying remains,{{citation needed|reason=Is it true?|date=December 2023}} as DNA evidence is more reliable.

===Racial issues===
In 2005, author [[Jack Hitt]] wrote an essay "Mighty White of You: Racial Preferences Color America's Oldest Skulls and Bones", in which he describes a systemic "racial preference" for Kennewick Man, and other old skeletons, to be of European origin. If this theory held true (and DNA evidence shows it does not), it would turn the tables on Indian claims of being the first inhabitants, white Europeans would be the victims of Indian invaders, and politically modern Indians would have less claim to sovereignty.{{sfnp|Hitt|2010}}

The use of the word "Caucasoid" to describe Kennewick Man, and his facial reconstruction that appeared plausibly European, were taken by many to mean that Kennewick Man was "Caucasian", European, or "white", rather than an ancestor of present-day Native Americans,{{sfnp|Chatters|2001|p=[https://archive.org/details/ancientencounter0000chat/page/170?view=theater 170]|q=}} although the term "Caucasoid" had also been applied to the [[Ainu people|Ainu]] of northern Japan. In 1998, ''[[The New York Times]]'' reported "White supremacist groups are among those who used Kennewick Man to claim that Caucasians came to America well before Native Americans."<ref name="Egan" /> Additionally, [[Asatru Folk Assembly]], a racialist [[Modern Paganism|neopagan]] organization, sued to have the bones genetically tested before it was adjudicated that Kennewick Man was an ancestor of present-day Native Americans.<ref name="Egan">{{cite news |last=Egan |first=Timothy |author-link=Timothy Egan |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/02/us/old-skull-gets-white-looks-stirring-dispute.html |title=Old Skull Gets White Looks, Stirring Dispute |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=April 2, 1998 |access-date=December 20, 2023}}</ref>