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[article provided by JH. Thanks...]

Interior Department to Seek DNA Analysis of Kennewick ManInterior Department
to Seek DNA Analysis of Kennewick Man

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1. '00 --

Dr. Francis P. McManamon, chief archaeologist for the National Park Service
and chief
consulting archaeologist for the Department of the Interior,
announced today that the department intends to try to obtain DNA
samples for analysis on the ancient skeletal remains known as
Kennewick Man.
  At the same time, the Department of Justice today requested that
the U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., allow an extension of
time beyond the March 24 deadline set by the court last year in
order for the Department of the Interior to consult with the five
tribes that have claimed Kennewick Man as their ancestor within the
next two weeks on DNA analysis and other cultural affiliation
matters and to complete the DNA analysis process.
  Kennewick Man, whose age has been radiocarbon dated at more than
9,000 years before present, is a nearly intact set of bones and
skeletal fragments that were found in more than 380 pieces in the
shallows of the Columbia River in July, 1996 in Kennewick, Wash.
The remains were found in an area under the responsibility of the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In March, 1998, the corps entered
into an inter-agency agreement with the department to assist them
with issues related to the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA).
  On Jan. 13, McManamon announced the department's determination
that the remains were Native American for the purposes of NAGPRA.
Under the law, Native American is defined as human remains "that
resided within the area now encompassed by the United States prior
to the historically documented arrival of European explorers,
irrespective of when a particular group may have come to reside in
this area, and irrespective of whether some or all of these groups
were or were not culturally affiliated or biologically related to
present-day Indian tribes."
  The department is in the process of determining whether a
cultural affiliation exists between the ancient remains and modern
Indian tribes. A source of information will be studies prepared by
experts in the areas of archaeology, anthropology, ethnography and
linguistics. These studies will assist the department in
determining whether the remains are culturally affiliated with the
five tribes that have claimed Kennewick Man as their ancestor and
have historically resided in the area where the human remains were
found.
  "We believe that DNA analysis will help determine the biological
and genetic racial ancestry of the remains, which has been the
subject of controversy in this case from the beginning," McManamon
explained. "It will be useful for cultural affiliation purposes if
we can obtain accurate mitochondrial DNA analysis. For example,
certain mitochondrial DNA 'haplogroups' are found in American
Indians that are not found in people of European or African
ancestry."
  In reaching the preliminary decision, the department used a
report by Dr. Noreen Tuross from the Smithsonian Center for
Materials Research, and Dr. Connie Kolman of the National Institutes
of Health and the National Research Council, two DNA expert who
evaluated what DNA analysis of ancient remains could be reasonably
expected to provide.
  "The very low levels of human bone collagen, compared with
modern bones, that were detected in the bone samples analyzed by
radiocarbon labs are an indication that this is going to be a
complicated process with no guarantees of a conclusive outcome,"
McManamon continued. "Our DNA experts expressed concerns that it
may be almost impossible to obtain accurate mitochondrial DNA
analysis on such ancient bone samples due to 'contamination' of
such ancient samples by modern DNA present in the environment."

The expert report by the DNA experts will be available on the
National Park Service's Internet site as soon as possible located
at the address http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/kennewick.
 

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