Natural History Highlight - National Museum of Natural History

Smithsonian Institution NMNH Natural History Highlight

Washington State Map Showing Kennewick Near the Snake and Columbia Rivers Kennewick Man

National Museum of Natural History Physical anthropologist Doug Owsley is featured in NOVA’s Mystery of the First Americans, airing February 15 at 9:00 pm ET. The program is about some of archaeology’s perennial questions: Who were the first people to visit the American continents? Where and when did they arrive? How and why they might have come? Were there several migrations, some that failed to secure a permanent foothold in the Americas and others that settled successfully, eventually to become the prehistoric ancestors of modern populations?

After 25 years of studying these questions, Dr. Owsley explains how an unusual turn of events
has now cast him in the role of research advocate rather than research scientist. It involves the
9,000 year old Kennewick Man, a controversial new discovery that is one of the oldest human
skeletons in North America. It involves a lawsuit against the federal government to keep
Kennewick Man from being reburied without adequate study. The suit was filed reluctantly by
Owsley and his colleagues in order to preserve the opportunity for researchers, now and in the
future, to study potentially important scientific evidence before decisions are made to remove
them from public access.

To learn more about the Kennewick Man visit these links:

Mystery of the First Americans, NOVA Online.
Friends of America's Past, a nonprofit organization dedicated to
promoting and advancing the rights of scientists and the public to
learn about America's past.
U.S. Department of the Interior, Kennewick Man.

"Natural History Highlight" features interesting and exciting activities and objects from the Museum. We will frequently introduce new highlights that come from our research, collections, exhibits, and projects.

06-March-2000 - NMNH Webmaster