DNA reignites Kennewick Man debate - BBC News
A long-running debate over an ancient skeleton known as Kennewick Man has been reignited.
The 9,000-year-old was claimed as an ancestor by Native Americans, who called for his remains to be reburied.
However, a group of anthropologists said the specimen's features were not similar to people from local tribes and won a legal bid to study the bones.
Now a genetic analysis has revealed his DNA is more closely related to modern Native Americans than to anyone else.
Study author Prof Eske Willerslev, from the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, said: "The first important question we tried to address was to what contemporary population is Kennewick Man most closely related to. And it is very clear that the genome sequence shows he is most closely related to contemporary Native Americans.
However Prof Willerslev said: "I guess you can say there is some kind of irony.
"The reason why we can come to this conclusion scientifically speaking is because the remains were kept out for science.
"At the same time, you can say the conclusions show that Native Americans were right, and maybe it should have been a different decision in the first place."
A long-running debate over an ancient skeleton known as Kennewick Man has been reignited.
The 9,000-year-old was claimed as an ancestor by Native Americans, who called for his remains to be reburied.
However, a group of anthropologists said the specimen's features were not similar to people from local tribes and won a legal bid to study the bones.
Now a genetic analysis has revealed his DNA is more closely related to modern Native Americans than to anyone else.
Study author Prof Eske Willerslev, from the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, said: "The first important question we tried to address was to what contemporary population is Kennewick Man most closely related to. And it is very clear that the genome sequence shows he is most closely related to contemporary Native Americans.
However Prof Willerslev said: "I guess you can say there is some kind of irony.
"The reason why we can come to this conclusion scientifically speaking is because the remains were kept out for science.
"At the same time, you can say the conclusions show that Native Americans were right, and maybe it should have been a different decision in the first place."