36 Washington INTHEPACIFICNORTHWEST ¾ PEOPLE TO KNOW James Chatters Kennewick Man David Thompson ¾ PLACES TO LOCATE AmericanAmerican Asia Siberia Bering Straight Pacific Coast Columbia Plateau Cascade Mountains Great Plains Olympic Peninsula Puget Sound Vancouver Island Cape Flattery Ozette (Cape Alava) Columbia River Pend Oreille River The Dalles (Celilo Falls) Kettle Falls Sequim Clovis, New Mexico ¾ WORDS TO UNDERSTAND animism cache Caucasian (Caucasoid) Makah petroglyphs are coroner carved into the rock at decimate Cape Alava, Ozette region, Olympic National Park. dentalium shells Photo by Tom Till desecrate forensic anthropologist immortality materialism Paleo-Indian potlatch MMMM protohistoric relief (art) TIMELINE 30,000 B.C. 20,000 B.C. 10,000 B.C. 0 repatriate resurrect 30,000–8,000 B.C. Paleo-Indians enter the Pacific Northwest. spawn spoils 10,000–8,000 B.C. Salmon return to the Columbia River tule as the Ice Age ends. weir 4,500–2,000 B.C. Plateau and Coastal Cultures emerge. 2,000–200 B.C. “Indian Golden Age” of population expansion 37 CC h h a a p p t t e e r r IndiansIndians of of the the PacificPacific 33 NorthwestNorthwest MM MM MMM MM 1700 1750 1800 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 1700–1810 Protohistoric period 1950s 1966 1977 1987 1996 (time of great change) Marmes Rockshelter Ozette site is Sequim East Kennewick site is discovered. discovered. mastodon Wenatchee Man is Smallpox 1760–1800 site is Clovis site is discovered. epidemics devastate discovered. discovered. Indian tribes. 1800 Ash falls from Mt. St. Helens. Prophet Dance appears. 1786–1810 Most tribes experience white contact. 38 Washington INTHEPACIFICNORTHWEST turned over to the local coroner, a The First Americans man whose job was to look into any recent discovery occupies a unique unnatural death. The coroner asked for the place in the story of when and how assistance of James Chatters, a forensic A humans came to the New World. anthropologist. A forensic anthropologist Discoveries in the last decade have given determines the cause of death of ancient new possibilities to the question of how the humans. first people came to the Americas. The long- Returning to the river, Chatters found n anthropolo held theory of one large migration of Asian most of the skeleton. The remains were people across a land bridge that linked remarkably complete, with only a few bones Agist studies Siberia with Alaska about 12,000 years ago is missing. Apparently the bones had washed the origin, distri- now being challenged. out of a bank during recent flooding. bution, physical Chatters’ examination revealed “a very Kennewick Man large number of Caucasoid features.” features, and cul- In July 1996, college students watching Caucasoid features are non-Indian and non- ture of human a hydroplane race on the Columbia River Asian. He determined that the skeleton was beings. near Kennewick found a human skull in the male, between forty and forty-five years old river. Thinking it might be that of a murder at the time of his death. The man was tall— victim, they called the police. The skull was about five feet nine inches—much taller than prehistoric Indian people in the region. Chatters’ first assumption was that the man had been an early pioneer or fur trapper. While cleaning the pelvis, the anthropol- Photo Tri-City Herald ogist found a gray object imbedded in the bone, which had partly healed around it. It was part of a spear point that resembled those in use from 4,500 to 9,000 years ago. Chatters sent a bone fragment to a radio- carbon laboratory. The results were star- tling. Kennewick Man, as Chatters called him, was between 9,300 and 9,500 years old, making him one of the oldest and most complete skeletons ever found in North America. Kennewick • Tom McClelland of Richland shows the skull casting of Kennewick Man. McClelland and Jim Chatters used the casting to recreate the facial features of the 9,400-year-old discovery. AMERICANINDIANSOFTHEPACIFICNORTHWEST 39 Battle of the Bones Indian tribes in the area soon claimed Kennewick Man’s remains. Calling him the “Ancient One,” they demanded that the skeleton be repatriated (returned to the place of origin) for immediate reburial in a secret place. Under provisions of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act passed in 1990, the federal government was required to rule on the ori- gins of the remains. If they were found to Christopher Francisco, a member of the Navajo be American Indian, they would be turned tribe, flies an American flag upside down out- side of the U.S. Courthouse in Portland during over to the appropriate tribe (if that could the Kennewick Man hearing. He was protesting be determined). the indecision over whether to turn over the Kennewick Man’s discovery stirred skeleton to Indian tribes for burial. Associated Press scientists across the country. They were concerned because in recent years Mystery of the Bones Paleo-Indian skeletons found elsewhere Many scholars believe that the earliest in the West had been returned to Indian migrations to the New World started in Asia, tribes for reburial before detailed studies then traveled across Siberia to the Americas could be done. In fact, the remains of one over the Bering Land Bridge. They also young woman reburied by Indian people believe there was a series of migrations over in Idaho were determined to be 12,800 many thousands of years. years old! She and other Paleo-Indian There is also growing evidence that skeletons shared Kennewick Man’s people may have traveled down the Pacific non-Indian Caucasoid features. A group Coast using boats or walked along the of scientists sued for the right to coastal plain. Over hundreds of years study Kennewick man’s remains, and won. groups reached the tip of South America. “It’s a victory for science,” said one anthro- Other scholars argue that some groups of pologist people came directly from Europe, Asia, and some Pacific Islands in boats. WHATDOYOUTHINK? BERING LAND BRIDGE Kennewick Man publicized a long- standing conflict between Indians ORTH POL and scientists over control of human N E remains. Indian people believe that digging bones up from the earth and Arctic Ocean N studying them is a desecration of their O RT H ancestors. A I A S A M On the other hand, anthropolo- A K S E LA R gists and archaeologists insist the I A C remains hold the key to explaining Bering A the origin of human beings in the Sea Americas. What do you think should be done Pacific Ocean with ancient skeletons? 40 Washington INTHEPACIFICNORTHWEST catastrophic floods. About 4,500 years ago, Paleo-Indians the climate grew milder. Indian populations ative peoples entered the Pacific increased. Northwest sometime before the end of By about 2,000 years ago, two clearly Nthe last Ice Age—about 10,000 to defined culture 12,000 years ago. We call these people Paleo groups—Coastal and because they were here first. Paleo means Plateau peoples—had ancient. The people were hunting the large emerged. Like today, animals that ranged through the region. In the people were 1987, a cache of “Clovis” spear points was divided by the high found in an apple orchard in East Cascade Mountains. Wenatchee. The Wenatchee Clovis site has They adapted to life on been dated to about 11,000 years ago. different land and in This discovery links our area to the varying climates. Clovis, New Mexico site. There, in 1937, the Clovis-style spear point was found along with mammoth bones. The Clovis people were big game hunters who This flint projectile moved across North point came from the Sequim America hunting Ice Wenatchee Clovis • Age animals such as site. It is about 11,000 years old. • Wenatchee mammoths, giant bison, and giant sloths. Marmes Man In 1977, a 12,000- year-old mastodon skeleton was found near Sequim. It had a r. Richard Daugherty, a geol- ogist from Washington State spear point embedded in a rib. D University, led a group of stu- Adaptation and Survival dents to the Marmes Rockshelter on the Palouse River. As the After the Paleo-Indians, groups called group explored the area, they Archaic Indians lived here. They had devel- found human bones. The bones oped better tools, including a spear thrower were determined to be those of called an atlatl. The large mastodons were people who had lived in the rom 2,000 gone by then, and the atlatl helped the region during the final stages of F years ago until hunters kill the smaller, faster deer for the Ice Age. After many years of food. There may have been several groups excavation, the Marmes the coming of the of Paleo and Archaic in the Northwest. Rockshelter was flooded by the white people, the Based on limited archaeological evidence, reservoir waters of a dam on the Snake River. American Indians their populations were sparse and widely enjoyed a “Golden scattered. Kennewick Man and his people were Age” of progress probably part of a small population, perhaps and population numbering only in the hundreds to a few growth. thousand, who roamed in small bands Lower across the Columbia Plateau. Monumental Dam Life for these people was harsh. They struggled constantly with the forces of • nature—climate, volcanic eruptions, and AMERICANINDIANSOFTHEPACIFICNORTHWEST 41 Digging for Artifacts rchaeologists are scientists who study artifacts to learn about people who Alived long ago. In 1999 and 2000, archaeologists excavated a site below Vantage Bridge on the Columbia River. Sentinel Gap, as the site is called, is thought to be about 10,200 years old.