Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (71704)	1/8/2000 11:01:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Thanks very much, Blue. After reading that very long Atlantic article, now at least I know what to call myself--a diffusionist! Newsweek did a cover story last year on Kennewick man, and the distinct possibility that the people we today call Native Americans were not America's first inhabitants. The Newsweek article also brought forward the arguments of archaeologists who do not accept that it was not worth digging beneath the sedimentary layer called the Clovis line, which is 10,000 years ago. Not surprisingly, archaeologists who have dug below it do find remains of Americans who lived here more than 10,000 years ago. I am really glad that Atlantic, which is a very prestigious publication, has published this article. Here is a passage from it, which I found particularly interesting because it points out very clearly that there is an archaeological resistance to being POLITICALLY INCORRECT. If archaeology is a real science, then political correctness should have zip to do with anything: <<The 1996 discovery in Washington state of an ancient skeleton, designated Kennewick Man, soon sparked controversy among archaeologists, Native Americans, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, because the skeleton does not appear to be of Native American origin. As the writer Mark Lasswell observed in The Wall Street Journal, "Scientific evidence that American Indian ancestors may not have been the first inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere is a ticklish subject, not only for Indians but also, apparently, for the Clinton administration, exquisitely attuned, as always, to the nuances of multiculturalism." Early studies of the remains led scientists to suspect that Kennewick Man arrived here some 9,300 years ago -- long after the Bering land bridge disappeared -- and bore certain "Caucasoid" features that were said to distinguish him from Native American peoples of Siberian heritage. Last fall federally appointed scientists released a report concluding that the skeleton's physiognomy is most closely linked to groups in southern and eastern Asia: the features originally described as Caucasoid are actually associated with a Japanese people known as the Ainu, they believe. If Kennewick Man is a member of the Ainu, that group's ancient maritime tradition might explain how he got here. Scientists say that more tests are needed to reach any definitive conclusions about Kennewick Man's origins; however, the government has not allowed any DNA testing of the skeleton to date, because Native Americans consider it intrusive and sacrilegious. If Kennewick Man was found on their land, area tribes insist, then he must be an ancestor, and his remains should not be disturbed. Moreover, because the religion and oral histories of these tribes hold that their people have lived in the Northwest "since the beginning of time,"they are resentful of any implication that they may have ancestors who migrated from another land -- whether from Siberia, Japan, or elsewhere. Archaeologists, eager to pursue the questions raised by Kennewick Man's discovery, have sued to perform DNA and other tests, and a U.S. magistrate has set a March deadline for federal officials to decide on the matter. Meanwhile, in implicit acknowledgment that the race card had been played successfully, in April, 1998, the Army Corps of Engineers abruptly dumped 500 tons of rock fill over the site where Kennewick Man was discovered, beside the Columbia River. Although archaeologists often restore digging sites to their original condition after extensive studies have been completed, this action, by the corps's own admission, was meant to ensure "the protection of any additional skeletal material or cultural artifacts from further revelation.">>