Ancient American Genome Rekindles Legal Row

The genome of a famous 8,500-year-old North American skeleton, known as Kennewick Man, shows that he is closely related to Native American tribes that have for decades been seeking to bury his bones. The finding, reported today in Nature¹, seems likely to rekindle a legal dispute between the tribes and the researchers who want to keep studying the skeleton. Yet it comes at a time when many scientists — including those studying Kennewick Man — are trying to move past such controversies by inviting Native Americans to take part in their research.

“The controversy has been painful for lots of people; tribal members and scientists as well,” says Dennis O’Rourke, a biological anthropologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. “I think the results will add weight to repatriation claims because now claims of ancestry can at least to some degree be clarified,” he says.

Two teenagers discovered the bones in July 1996 near the shores of the Columbia River, near Kennewick, Washington. While trying to sneak into a hydroplane race, they noticed a...