Nearly two decades after he was accidentally discovered in one of the biggest archaeological finds of a generation, Kennewick Man is still in limbo.
Wind sweeps across this lonely stretch of sagebrush, carrying songs and prayers of 10 tribes gathered here, laying ancestral remains to rest.
From both sides of the mountains, they helped bless the bones of 57 individuals wrapped in white cotton muslin tied with cotton string, put away with cedar boughs and tule mats within a hand-dug grave.
Afterward, elder Avery Cleveland of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation knelt to burn tobacco on the covered grave, sending its smoke and a horse song on the rising wind.
The love and care paid to these remains, blessed and returned to earth, is what tribal leaders say they want to give Kennewick Man. But nearly two decades after one of the oldest and most intact ancient skeletons ever found in North America was accidentally discovered, Kennewick Man, more than 9,500 years old, is still in limbo.
That could be about to change.
Scientists in Copenhagen right now are doing tests using new methods that could for the first time extract some of the skeleton’s DNA, perhaps answering the question of the ancient man’s ancestry.
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