NOVA Online | Mystery of the First Americans

Rob Bonnichsen

Claims for the Remains
Dr. Robson Bonnichsen
Director, Center for the Study of the First Americans and Professor of Anthropology, Oregon State University

The significance of the Kennewick Man discovery should be understood inlight of scientific developments occurring in the field of First Americansstudies. For more than 40 years, most specialists seeking to explainPaleo-American origins have supported the Clovis-first model. This modelproposes that the Americas were peopled once by a biological population fromSiberia possessing a single culture and language. It envisions that thefounding population moved across the Bering Land Bridge, traveled down theIce-free Corridor between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets, andexpanded into what is now the United States about 11,500 years ago. By use of anew and efficient hunting technology, these early hunters and gatherers andtheir immediate descendants were supposedly able to prosper and multiply asthey spread across North America and throughout South America in about athousand years.

Many believe that this initial colonization event explains the peopling of theAmericas. Over the next 11 millennia, descendants from this initial foundingpopulation evolved and were responsible for the enormous diversity ofbiological populations, cultural groups, and languages found among modernNative Americans at the time of European contact.

First Americans specialists are now reconsidering the Clovis-first model inlight of new discoveries and scientific developments that suggest the peoplingof the Americas is much more complicated than originally anticipated. Many nowbelieve that the old, simple, unilinear evolutionary model is incorrect andthat a multilinear evolutionary model that envisions multiple colonizationevents must replace it. Some specialists are now considering the possibilitythat different colonizing groups from Asia and possibly Europe are required toaccount for the biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity found at thetime of European contact and in the archeological record. Many specialistsbelieve that the future of First Americans research must focus on exploring thevalidity of this new paradigm.

Many specialists in First Americans studies now suspect that not one but multiple colonization events occurred in America's earliest prehistory.

New discoveries and scientific developments have caused many leadingspecialists to question the validity of the Clovis-first model. In addition toarcheological research, genetics and skeletal studies are providing importantnew lines of evidence for understanding Paleo-American origins. Advances in ourunderstanding of the archeological record suggest humans were in the Americaswell before Clovis. Important pre-Clovis data have been recovered from theMeadowcroft Rockshelter, Pennsylvania; the Cactus Hill site, Virginia; the LaSena site, Nebraska; the Monte Verde site, Chile; and the El Jobo site,Venezuela. These and many others support the proposition that humanswere in the Americas before Clovis.

Other research suggests a series of regional cultures developed in the Americasthat were contemporary with Clovis. For example, the Stemmed Point from theGreat Basin, Snake River Plains, and the Plateau as well as the Goshen complexfrom along the flanks of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains have radiocarbonages as early as those from Clovis sites. In summary, the picture that isemerging from the archeological record indicates cultural variabilityexisted in the Americas by Clovis times.

Genetic research conducted by Theodore Schurr, Douglas C. Wallace, andothers provides compelling evidence for multiple colonization events. ModernNative American populations fall into four mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, A-D,and a fifth founding group is genetically linked to an Eurasian haplogroup X.(Transmitted solely along the female line, mtDNA can help identify individualsto haplogroups, or genetic groupings.) Haplogroups A, C, and D were brought tothe Americas perhaps as early as 30,000 years ago. A second immigration mayhave brought haplogroup B possibly between 13,000 and 17,000 years ago, eitheralong the coast or overland, or both. An additional haplogroup X that sharedaffinities to European or possibly Eurasian populations may have also enteredthe Americas prior to the last glacial maximum and is absent in modern Siberianpopulations. Ancient Beringian populations isolated during the last glacialperiod evolved by post-glacial times into a large North Pacific Rim branch ofhaplogroup A, which includes Eskimos and Na-Dene Indians.

Kennewick Man, whose discovery in a riverbank in 1996 is recreatedin this still from the NOVA film "Mystery of the First Americans," is one ofthe most complete early skeletons ever found in the Americas.

Paleo-American researchers have opened a whole new intriguing field ofpaleobiology research by taking advantage of advances in radiocarbon datingsuch as carbon-14 accelerated mass spectrometry, which allows specialists toprecisely date tiny amounts of carbon from individual skeletons. Physicalanthropologists from North and South America have observed that Paleo-Americancranial forms older than 8,000 years have distinctive features that share moresimilarities with Pacific Rim and southern Asian populations than with eithermodern northeast Asian or modern Native American populations. One possibleinterpretation of these data is that more recent groups replaced late Ice Agepeoples who had a discretely different ancestry.

Our knowledge of America's earliest biological and cultural heritage remainsamazingly thin. For example, there are fewer than 35 dated human skeletalremains in the New World older than 8,000 years old. Most of these earlyremains are fragmentary. The Kennewick Man skeleton is one of the most completeearly skeletons from the Americas, and its study by competentscientists is essential to understanding his morphology, genetics, health,diet, lifestyle, etc., and his relationship to other New and Old Worldpopulations. Only through the study of important individual skeletons, such asKennewick Man, from different regions and different times will the scientificcommunity be able to build a coherent picture of America's past.

In First Americans studies, specialists can contribute to the scientific goalof developing an understanding of America's earliest cultural and biologicalheritage only through the comparative study of archeological remains, humanskeletons, and genetics. This research, based on the foundation of integratedstudies by multiple independent observers, promises to benefit all peoples byproviding knowledge about the diversity of our species, a mirror of ourancestry, and America's contribution to world prehistory. It is imperative thatpublic decision-makers charged with implementing the Native American GravesProtection and Repatriation Act of 1990 recognize the importance ofpreservation and study of early human remains. Only through scientific study ofimportant discoveries such as Kennewick Man can an objective knowledgeAmerica's rich and diverse past be developed and fully appreciated by allcommunities who have a stake in the past.

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