Genome of enigmatic Kennewick skeleton confirms he was Native American

In 1996, a human skeleton washed out of a riverbank in Washington state. In time, searchers found roughly 90 percent of what was identified as a contemporary male of European descent. But carbon dating of the bones threw that ID out the window: the skeleton, which became known as Kennewick Man, was over 8,000 years old—he lived closer to a time when North America was devoid of humans than he did to the arrival of Europeans.

That's when things started getting complicated. No less than five Native American tribes claimed that Kennewick Man was their ancestor, which would allow them to claim the bones and reinter them. Scientists who wanted to study the individual tried to block this, and the case ended up in court. Relationships between the tribes and scientists frayed badly.

Meanwhile, a study of the skeleton indicated that, while it had a few European-like features, its strongest affinities were to Polynesians and the Ainu of Japan. Now, a group has completed a very rough draft of the Kennewick Man genome, showing that it has clear affinities with Native American populations. In doing so, this work provides further evidence that the peopling of North America was complicated.

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