C. Loggy Wrote:
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> Here's a book I found. I thought it might be
> better post here instead of the archeology forum.
> It's about the Kennewick man.
>
> The book claims the Kennewick man was white. Isn't
> it true that the Kennewick man wasn't white at
> all, but an early people much like the Ainu--a
> Mongoloid? Seems like a fairly simple mistake for
> archeologists to make, let alone award-winning
> archeologists.

This book is a good example of what happens when good people let themselves get soured over minor frustrations.... and why folk shouldn't oppose NAGPRA too fanatically!

The Gears are a pair of amateur archaeologists who started writing a series of very popular books fictionalizing North American prehistory.

Then NAGPRA..... AKA the "North American Graves Repatriation Act", which gives relevant federally recognized tribes (& documented descendants of specific remains) a voice in the disposition of ancestral remains found on federal land (~one quarter of the U.S.).... passed, & various stiff necked U.S. archaeologists got their knickers in a serious twist.

Even though it only applies to a fraction of Native American remains.... and was intended to prevent racism by essentially giving the SAME consideration to Native American remains as were typically given to White & Black remains (correcting some SERIOUS ethical & academic misbehavior on the part of archaeologists past & present), these folk disliked NAGPRA because they either felt it would put too many constraints on their field of study, required them to ask permission from ("shudder") "INDIANS" before digging up or studying these Indians' ancestors, or was simply one more layer of red tape hindering what had been a relatively freewheeling, Indiana Jones type profession. Oh, repatriation requirements ALSO required going in and cataloging (for potential repatriation) the hundreds of thousands of Indian skeletal remains that have been sitting (largely unstudied, often under very damaging conditions) in museum & university basements for as long as a hundred years or more in some cases..... which (even if it DID turn up a number of unidentified PaleoIndian remains, & produced great quantities of data on these various remains) takes away resources from digging up NEW sites/remains (which would then have moldered away unstudied, but which were MUCH more fun to dig than writing dull papers on previously excavated remains would have been, and which would have gained MUCH more academic repute than said dull papers).

After NAGPRA passed, the Gears immediately started changing the tone of their books (Indian characters suddenly started being depicted as serial killers, incestual rapists, cannibals, and so on), & introductions set in the modern day started blatently lying about NAGPRA & tribal actions. And now.... in this book, the Gears carry their grudge to new levels by telling malicious lies of a racist nature.... claiming that Kennewick was "White", that Indians are "afraid of the truth getting out", & depicting "real" Indians as being against NAGPRA while "fake, only-in-it-for-the-money-or-political-power" type deculturated and/or thinblooded Indians abuse NAGPRA for greedy reasons, without any real concern over the remains themselves, etc."

I'd not bother reading the book, if I were you. It's basically an angry slander by two people who have let their pique fester until it poisoned them.

Kenuchelover.