The remains of a 9000-year-old "Kennewick Man", also known as the "Ancient One", was finally buried last weekend. Over 200 people from five Native American tribes gathered at an undisclosed site to bury the remains.
According to Geek Wire, remains of the "Kennewick Man" were buried in accordance with century old funerary rituals at a place on the Columbia River Plateau. It was actually a re-burial, which put an end to a saga that started in 1996. The skeleton of the "Kennewick Man" was spotted by two college students along the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, and was later recovered and studied by experts who determined them as old as 9000 years.
Initially, the archaeologists were of the opinion that the skeleton was a closer match to the Europeans rather than the Native Americans, igniting a debate that lasted for a long time over the origin of the "Kennewick Man". There was a lot of pressing over the issue from the five Pacific Northwest Tribes on the Army Corps of Engineers, against which a group of scientists sued to block any kind of handover of the skeleton.
The federal judges also gave the verdict in favor of the scientists, and the skeleton of the "Kennewick Man" was kept for study and were later on locked away at Seattle's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. In 2015, it was found that DNA extracted from a hard bone of the "Kennewick Man" skeleton matched with that of an individual from the Colville confederation, one of the five Native tribes.
Further studies of the skeleton confirmed that it had the same characteristics as that of the Native tribes. Later in 2016, the Federal court ruled it in the favor of the Native tribes to take possession of the remains of the "Kennewick Man".
According to The Seattle Times, under a legislation signed by the former President Barrack Obama, the remains of the "Kennewick Man" were transferred to the tribes from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. This also witnessed an end to a bitter legal battle between the Army Corps of Engineers and the Native Tribes.
The burial of the "Kennewick Man" was done on Saturday. To avoid any further desecration of the remains, the exact location of burial has been undisclosed.
