Imagine yourself wading through your hometown river and you walk into something round. You reach down and pull up a human skull. This senario became a reality for two young men in Kennewick, Washington on July 28, 1996. While avoiding to pay for a boat race, Will Thomas and David Deacy came across an ancient skull. After the boat race, the two men turned the skull over to the police. The police collected more bone fragments and called Jim Chatters, forensic anthropologist. He was to determine race, age, sex, and age at time of death. Little did Chatters know that this skeleton dated back over nine thousand years, would end up in a battle between the government and the anthropologist who urged to study his remains. This battle is still going on today and is concerning an act passed in 1990, the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) (Fine 4). This skeleton was named Kennewick Man to antropologists and Ancient One to Native Americans. It is critical for studies to be performed on Kennewick Man to determine his cultural background and if he is or not Native AMerican. If studies are done, people will have a better understanding of people during that time.
When Chatters examined Kennewick Man his initial response was, Caucasion male. He came to this conclusion by looking at the measurements of his bones. Each scientific race has specific measurements to their body structure, which is why we look different from one another. When he realized that Kennewick Man dated over nine thousand years old, he became confused. He took the remains to a former anthropologist at Central Washington University for a second opinion. When Catherine MacMillian saw him she stated, "male Caucasian." Chatters then showed her the pelvic bone of Kennewick Man, it had a small gray object embedded in it that looked like a spear point. She told Chatters that it was odd the object was there but her answer remained the same (Chatters 36).
