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[source: NativeNews; Mon, 28 Feb 2000 22:11:02]

  Monday, February 28, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

A SPIRIT WITHOUT A HOME
The fate of the remains of Spirit Cave Man is pitting the Fallon
Paiute-Shoshone Tribe against the government.

By Sean Whaley
Donrey Capital Bureau

      "One day, the father of all Indians came to this area and lived on a mountain near Stillwater." -- Paiute creation story

      FALLON -- Alvin Moyle, chairman of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, figures he has some of the best evidence around that 9,400-year-old Spirit
Cave Man, discovered near Fallon in 1940, is an ancestor and should be returned to the tribe for burial.
       At a conference in Oregon in 1999, a state museum official said that a re-created bust of Spirit Cave Man, one of Nevada's most ancient residents,
"looked just like Alvin Moyle."
       Humor aside, the fate of the remains, found carefully buried in a cave near the Grimes Point petroglyph area, has caused a conflict between
scientists who want to study him further and members of the Paiute-Shoshone tribe who want him reburied.
       Smack in the middle are the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Nevada Director Bob Abbey, who must decide whether the remains are affiliated with
the tribe and so must be returned under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act passed by Congress in 1990.
       Moyle, who listened to Paiute stories told by his grandmother as a child, said there is compelling evidence that Spirit Cave Man, who was in his
mid-40s when he died, is related to the present day inhabitants of the Fallon area. The proximity of the burial to the tribe's ancient territory and the
types of artifacts found with him all suggest that he is a very early ancestor, Moyle said.
       "The ancient date of Spirit Cave Man goes beyond our oral history, which goes back 4,000 years," Moyle said. "But in our view, we have always
lived here. If they were other people here, where are they now? We're still here."
       If the BLM agrees with the evidence provided by the tribe, then Spirit Cave Man will be reburied and not become a guinea pig to test theories of the
early migration of man into the Western Hemisphere, he said. The idea of performing DNA or other invasive testing on the remains is completely at odds
with tribal tradition, which says that the remains of ancestors must be respected and left in peace, Moyle said.
       The scientific community has a much different view, however, and at least one group has asked the BLM to deny the claim of the Paiute-Shoshone
tribe and allow further study.
       A letter sent to the BLM by the Churchill County Chapter of the Nevada Archaeological Association in April 1998 said that scientific research on the
remains should continue.
       "We respectfully disagree with tribal members and others who argue that any scientific examination will show disrespect to the deceased individual
and/or the local tribe," the letter said. "On the contrary, we think that it is disrespectful to all the people of Churchill County, the state of Nevada
and the United States, to bury our past without first attempting to understand where we all come from."
       Spirit Cave Man, named for the shelter in which he was found, has spent an interesting life since being discovered by archaeologists S.M. and Georgia
Wheeler six decades ago.
       When discovered, he was estimated to be about 2,000 to 3,000 years old. He ended up in storage at the Nevada State Museum.
       But in 1994, scientists wanting to test a new type of radiocarbon dating chose the remains and others held by the museum for examination. The
results from the University of California at Riverside, which stunned scientists, showed that the man had been living along the marshes of western
Nevada in 7,419 B.C.
       The age of 9,419 years, give or take 25 years, makes him one of the oldest humans ever found in North America and the oldest mummified remains
ever found.
       "This is the best dated early man in the New World," said Amy Dansie, an anthropologist with the state Museums and History Division, when the
discovery was announced in 1996. "We were absolutely astonished at the date of this mummy."
       The man, who stood 5-foot-2, still has black hair on his head and dried skin attached to his skull and his right shoulder. He became mummified
naturally in the cave.
       He was wrapped in a finely woven reed mat and wore intricately crafted moccasins made of three different types of animal hide. He also was wrapped
in a woven hemp-and-rabbit-skin blanket. Three woven bags were found next to him, using the plants still found today at the Stillwater marsh near here.
       A medical examination of the remains showed that he had suffered a fractured skull that had partially healed, and had abscesses that indicated
gum disease and infection. He also had abnormalities in his vertebrae that suggest he suffered from chronic back pain.
       The ancient date of Spirit Cave Man would make him a major scientific discovery in and of itself. But fuel was added to the debate when some
scientists suggested that he was not related to the American Indians now living in western Nevada, but represented a separate, and possibly earlier,
migration of people.
       Humans generally are thought to have migrated to the Western Hemisphere over an ice bridge between Siberia and Alaska about 12,000 years ago.
       A new theory is that Spirit Cave Man and a possible relative, the also-controversial 9,300-year-old Kennewick man found along the Columbia
River in Washington in 1996, represent a separate and possibly earlier migration. Both sets of ancient remains are said by scientists to represent a
Caucasoid-type of early man, more closely related to a group of native Japanese called the Ainu, rather than the Mongolian, or Northern Asian source
of American Indians.
       Nevada tribal leaders have rejected such theories, saying they come from non-American Indian establishment scientists who are pursing their own
agendas.
       The debate heated up even further when the Nevada State Museum created a life-like bust of Spirit Cave Man.
       Those that have seen the bust have debated whether the features resemble modern-day Paiutes or not.
       Moyle said the re-creation was inappropriate and was done without any consultation or communication with the tribe.
       Keith Kintigh, president of the Society for American Archaeology and an anthropology professor at Arizona State University at Tempe, said the
repatriation law was intended to ensure the return of historically more modern American Indian remains that could be reasonably connected to a tribe.
It will be difficult for the Fallon tribe to make a case for Spirit Cave Man because of its remote antiquity, but not impossible, he said.
       The law, which the society helped craft, requires a claimant to show a shared group identity that can be reasonably traced from the remains to a
modern tribe, Kintigh said.
       Although not involved in the specific issue of Spirit Cave Man's future, Kintigh said both the scientists who are interested in the human
occupation of the new world, and the Fallon tribe, have legitimate positions.
       Some Native Americans are concerned about Spirit Cave Man because of a belief that their special rights and status could be threatened by evidence
that they were not the first people in North America, he said.
       "The fear is out there," Kintigh said.
       Better communication about what testing would entail could result in compromise in these controversial cases, he said. DNA testing, for example,
requires only the smallest amount of material, Kintigh said.
       If Spirit Cave Man is reburied, it will mean the loss of a significant find, he said.
       "The sad fact of reburial is that it is usually irreversible," Kintigh said. "We can't get it back once it is gone."
       Pat Barker, an archaeologist with the Nevada State Office of the BLM, said the plan is to make an initial decision on the tribal claim in the next
few months, then provide a 30-day public comment period.
       Even if the remains are found to belong to the tribe, federal law could still allow further testing if it is determined to be in the national
interest.
       Moyle said the tribe will fight in the courts if necessary to have the remains returned to the tribe and protected from any testing.
       But if the tribe is successful, a lawsuit could come from the scientific community instead.
       The Churchill archaeology group said in its letter: "We feel that is is presumptuous for anyone to conclude that they understand what the deceased
would have wanted when he has been separated from us by 94 centuries and over 470 generations."
       As the controversy rages around him, Spirit Cave Man awaits his fate silently in a Carson City warehouse.

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