On February 4, 2004 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that oral histories that are colored by religious beliefs and myths are not reliable evidence to support the Department of Interior's decision to surrender the bones of Kennewick Man to American Indian tribes for burial under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

The Department of Interior (DOI) had determined to surrender Kennewick Man's remains to Indian groups, solely on the groups' claims that their oral histories and myths asserted that their peoples had been the first peoples to inhabit the American northwest, and that, therefore, Kennewick had to be related to them.

In fact, scientific studies showed that Kennewick Man had lived 8,340 to 9,200 years ago, long before any evidence of the presence of modern tribes. The scientific studies further showed that Kennewick Man was of a different genetic stock than American Indians. Nevertheless, based solely on the Indian groups' oral histories, the DOI ruled that Kennewick Man was related to modern Indians and that his remains should be turned over for burial by the Indian groups.

The court overruled DOI's decision and ruled that the remains may finally, six and one-half years after his discovery, be studied by archaeologists and other scientists. Kennewick Man's litigation journey may be at an end, unless DOI or Indian groups decide to request en banc review before the Ninth Circuit or to request review by the United States Supreme Court.

DOI's decision to rely on religious myths rather than on scientific evidence has been outrageous from the start. Underlying the entire affair has been the impropriety of government acting to impose select religious beliefs over objective science and the general public's right to study and understand history. The case has been rife with establishment clause and free exercise clause issues, but the court avoided them by relying on traditional legal principals of evidential reliability. By accepting the obvious, that religious beliefs alone cannot serve as reliable archaeological evidence, the court did not need to address the serious issues of DOI sponsoring religion and discriminating in favor of certain groups' religious beliefs.

Scientists can now hopefully get down to the exciting business of learning about this extremely ancient man who lived hard and died hard with a long-festering spear point in his hip.

A full history of Kennewick Man is available at www.kennewick-man.com.

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