Making archaeological sense of Kennewick Man

Abstract

Four published inferences about Kennewick Man that can distort an understanding of Pacific Northwest prehistory fail a review of new and pre-existing evidence. These are: he was a seal hunter from the northern Northwest Coast; the spear in his pelvis represents a Western Stemmed Tradition type; he was buried in an extended position; and he is more closely related genetically to people of the northern Columbia Plateau than any other Native Americans. A review of damage to the skeleton and its position at discovery indicates semi-flexed burial with downstream orientation. The projectile point in his pelvis matches an Old Cordilleran Tradition type not known from the region where he was found. Stable C and N isotope comparisons to a faunal collection of comparable early Holocene age, and with a contemporary individual found near the Kennewick locality demonstrate that he had a normal diet for early Holocene interior Washington. The high δ15N that stimulated the seal-hunter idea might instead result from nutritionally inadequate subsistence practices. Claims of genetic relationships to a specific Native American tribe suffer from bias and the near absence of comparative data from the U.S. Kennewick Man died at a time of ethnic replacement in the Columbia Plateau and these findings support three possible solutions to his identity that might never be resolved.