Saturday, Feb. 25, 2006

Meet Kennewick Man (w/video)

By Anna King, Herald staff writer

SEATTLE -- Kennewick Man was a beefy guy.

The scientists studying the Mid-Columbia's most famous ancient resident say he was big and looked fearsome.

"It's no wonder his assailant took after him with a spear," said Richard Jantz. "You wouldn't want to tangle hand-to-hand."

The 9,000-year-old skeleton has a stone spearhead lodged in his right hip and worn teeth that may have pained him. And previous studies have suggested he stood about 5 feet 9 inches tall, a large man for that time.

Hugh Berryman, professor of anthropology at Middle Tennessee State University, said most of all, Kennewick Man was a survivor. He was big, and he was formidable.

"All you have to do is look at his teeth and know that he had a interesting life," he said. "He has a spear point in his pelvis -- that wasn't a good day."

That wound was long healed by the time Kennewick Man died, perhaps by a decade or more. One of the scientists told the Seattle Times that Kennewick Man likely sustained the injury when he was between 15 and 20.

Jantz, an anthropologist at the University of Tennessee, is one of the original scientists who battled in court for nearly 10 years to study the bones. He hadn't seen them until he arrived in Seattle this week.

He and a dozen other scientists revealed some of the details of their study during a press conference early Friday morning at the University Tower Hotel. Answers to some of the riddles of Kennewick Man had been shared in a scientific presentation Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists.

The news that Kennewick Man was buried by other people made headlines worldwide Friday, appearing in newspapers across the United States, Canada, England and Australia.

Some of the scientists were still discussing their observations of the bones and explaining pictures on their laptop computers amid a troop of reporters Friday before leaving for their universities and museums.

Jantz said he was surprised at how robust Kennewick Man was after inspecting the bones for the first time. He had seen models and casts but said nothing can replace a look at the real thing.

Jantz, a college professor who taught the lead scientist studying Kennewick Man, Doug Owsley of the Smithsonian, said he is most interested in how Kennewick Man lived and what he did during his life.

"He used his right arm much more than his left," he said, likely to throw spears when he hunted.

The scientist also said that when he looked at the skull, it was difficult to determine where Kennewick Man might have come from.

All human skulls are made up of plates that aren't tightly knit at birth. As a person grows, the plates grow together. And since most estimates put his age at about 45 when he died -- though there were hints he might have been as young as 30, the Times reported -- that makes his skull harder to read.

With Kennewick Man's skull plates fused so tightly, it's hard to see the patterns scientists normally look for to help identify a particular population or race, Jantz said.

Thomas Stafford, a geochemist for the University of Wisconsin, called the skeleton a "super nova," because it is among a select handful of ancient remains. And it is one of the most complete and well preserved, surpassed by only Spirit Cave Man, found in 1940 about 70 miles east of Reno, Nev.

Sometimes during a study of ancient bones, "you're looking at a hip fragment or a part of a rib," he said, rather than an an almost complete skeleton.

Stafford also said Kennewick Man looks very different than ancient Na-tive American remains he's studied. Kennewick Man had a narrow, long face with a prominent profile.

Native Americans tend to have faces that are much broader and have a more compact profile, he said.

"If Kennewick Man was to walk in this room, he would fit in," Stafford said. "He's wearing weird clothes, but that's about it."

Stafford has been studying Kennewick Man bone fragments to determine if scientists might conduct more accurate radiocarbon dating tests and if he can tell where the ancient American might have traveled.

By looking at his teeth and doing tests, Stafford could, for example, perhaps tell if Kennewick Man started his life in New York and moved to the Northwest, he said.

Stafford also said DNA still may be locked deep inside Kennewick Man's teeth. Hard tooth enamel might have protected it, he explained.

Not everyone agrees with all of the findings outlined in Seattle.

For instance, Jim Chatters said he thinks the skeleton broke out of the Columbia River bank where it was found differently than Owsley illustrated in his speech Thursday.

Chatters was the original scientist to find many of the bones and catalog them in 1996 on the banks of the river, when Chatters lived in Richland and was deputy coroner for Benton County.

"A lot of things given as definitive answers really aren't," he said.

Owsley has said the spearhead found inside Kennewick Man isn't what previous scientists have described as a classic Cascade point. Chatters still thinks it is.

Berryman, although he spends most of his time with the recent dead, said Kennewick Man is exciting as well.

"It's almost like you are interviewing a skeleton," he said. "How old are you? How tall are you? What sex are you? And, oh I bet that tooth hurt!"