Monday, January 23rd, 2006
The Tricity Herald
By Anna King
The scientists who fought to study Kennewick Man's bones have turned their attention to another ancient skeleton that Native Americans claim as an ancestor.
Spirit Cave Man's nearly 10,000-year-old bones were found about 70 miles east of Reno, Nev., in 1940 and are about 1,000 years older than Kennewick Man. Like Kennewick Man, it's one of the oldest and most complete skeletons ever found in the U.S.
Spirit Cave Man is being claimed by tribes under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires museums or other agencies to return remains found to have cultural affiliation with an existing tribe.
"He's our grandfather," said Rochanne Downs, coordinator for the Great Basin Inter-tribal NAGPRA Coalition and a member of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe claiming the bones.
"A burial today is just as sacred as one 10,000 years ago," she said. "We are not just pursuing him because he is old; the remains of our ancestors are all important."
Friends of America's Past, a Portland-based nonprofit organization, recently filed an amicus brief -- or friend of the court brief -- in the Spirit Cave Man case. The group contends the U.S. District Court of Nevada isn't following the precedent set by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
That court ruled tribes had no right to stop study because Kennewick Man was not related to any existing tribes. "You really have to prove that ancient remains are Native American before you claim them under NAGPRA," said Cleone Hawkinson, president of Friends of America's Past.
Hawkinson also said Spirit Cave Man has a different bone structure and was found with dissimilar artifacts from the tribe claiming him. Spirit Cave man also is hundreds of generations removed from any current tribes of Nevada.
"If they didn't have enough evidence to link Kennewick Man, then it's got to be harder to link Spirit Cave Man," Hawkinson said.
The Nevada court is expected to rule in the case sometime this year, although the ruling isn't likely to affect the Kennewick Man study, she added.
When Spirit Cave Man was discovered by S.M. and Georgia N. Wheeler, the experienced archaeologists thought the remains were those of a "young adult male" who was "approximately 1,500 to 2,000 years old." More advanced studies found the bones were from a 45- to 55-year-old man, and the skeleton is about 9,415 years old.
Spirit Cave Man was found buried in a cave under a woven mat. His skeleton is complete, Hawkinson said. The remains include hair and pieces of skin.
Paula Barran, the Portland-based attorney who drafted the brief for Spirit Man and who represented the scientists fighting to study Kennewick Man, said the Bureau of Land Management's Nevada office hasn't followed proper NAGPRA proceedings.
"You first make a decision on whether it's Native American, then you decide whether it's culturally affiliated to the people that are claiming it," she said.
Barran said the BLM assumed the bones were Native American because the skeleton was old.
But tribal members don't think studies can prove or disprove who their ancestors are. The tribe of more than 1,000 people believes they have been on the land forever, Downs said.
"I don't need anyone to tell me where I came from," Downs said. "Did you see Noah sail for 40 days and 40 nights with all the animals? People believe out of truth. We have respect for everyone else's religion. We just ask the same respect for ours."
The court battles have strained the people who call themselves Toi Ticutta, or tule-eaters. But Downs said they won't give up on their ancestor. The tribe doesn't own a casino and needs money to provide health care, housing and education to its members on the 8,200-acre reservation 60 miles east of Reno.
In Portland, Hawkinson said Spirit Cave Man should be kept in a museum so that as scientists develop more sophisticated study techniques, they can learn more about America's oldest residents.
Downs said keeping an ancestor locked away is like putting him in prison with no release date. And she said unburied ancestors create an unbalance in the tribe's spiritual circle of life.
"He's been sitting in a box for over 60 years," Downs said. "How is he going to come home?"
Spirit Cave Man is stored at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, Nev.