Skeleton for study - 9309 years later

WASHINGTON - Nine years after the 9300-year-old remains of so-called Kennewick Man were discovered, scientists have finally begun studying one of the oldest and most complete skeletons found in North America.

Some experts believe the skeleton, found partly buried near a stream, could yield important clues about the origin of the original population of the Americas.

The remains had been locked away since their accidental discovery by Washington state students in 1996 because of a legal dispute over who should have access.

Native American tribes had said the bones should be reburied without scientific examination, claiming such scrutiny would be desecration.

In February 2004, a panel of judges ruled in favour of eight scientists who filed a lawsuit seeking the right to study the remains and said there was no link between the remains and five Native American tribes who opposed the research.

Scientists have already taken scans of the pelvis and skull and a dozen experts have converged in Seattle to begin 10 days of more comprehensive study.

The remains will be transferred to the Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the land along the Columbia River in Washington where they were found, before being returned to the University of Washington's Burke Museum.

They have been held in a vault at the museum that requires two keys to open.

The aim of the scientists is to glean what details they can about the way Kennewick Man lived and died.

"This is something that should have been done years ago," archaeologist Jim Chatters, the first researcher to inspect the bones, told the Seattle Times.

The work on Kennewick Man will further fuel the already often ferocious debate about the origins of the native populations of the American continent.

Chatters and Tom McClelland, a sculpture instructor, have carried out a skull reconstruction. Studies concluded that the facial features did not match those of Native American tribes.

An early reconstruction depicted him as looking like the thin-faced actor Patrick Stewart. A later computer reconstruction gave him a wider nose, fuller lips and deep-set eyes.

Many scientists believe the first New World inhabitants arrived in a wave about 11,500 years ago, walking across an Ice Age land bridge between Siberia and Alaska.

But some believe discovered skeletons and scattered evidence of earlier settlements may indicate several waves of migration from different parts of Asia and the Pacific.

These people - many based at Texas A&M University - are usually known as the "Pre-Clovis" group, a reference to their belief that human populations predate the 12,000-year-old skeleton found at Clovis, New Mexico, in 1908.

Some scientists say Kennewick Man's skull most closely resembles the Ainu, an aboriginal group that still lives in northern Japan.

The best evidence of lineage would come from DNA analysis. Scientists tested small leg-bone fragments several years ago with no success but the corps of engineers has refused permission to take any more samples from the skeleton. The corps has also forbidden researchers to glue the bones back together.

- Independent