Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World (review)

"Thirty-five years ago," Walker and Owsley explain, "the peopling of the Americas, according to the Clovis-first theory, was a done deal. Today we are looking at multiple routes and peoples." Readers not up to speed on the Clovis-first theory will get a brief cram course here; however, students who are already familiar with older theories involving an Asia-to-America land bridge crossing will better appreciate Walker and Owsley's dense, thoughtful discussion on how rapid changes in archaeological techniques and evidence reinterpretation have altered this model in recent years, and the subsequent cultural and political controversies among scientists, native claimants to ancient human remains, governments agencies, and the courts. Kennewick Man, a skeleton retrieved from the Columbia River in 1996, is the focal point of this study, an object lesson in how scientists can deduce amazing amounts of information from what may seem to the untutored viewer to be unimpressive dings, cracks, and concretions in bone or the simplest position of a limb in its final resting place. To demonstrate how far the field of paleoamerican studies has come in the past century, Walker and Owsley backtrack to discuss several other notable human remains that have altered the timetable of human settlement and place of origin. There's a lot of technical information here, on topics such as isotope-based dating techniques, tooth-shape comparison, advanced CT scans, sediment accretions, bone stress, wound recovery, and the like, but for serious readers who delight in forensic investigation or perhaps consider a future in the field, this material will push their understanding further than most titles on this subject for youth readership. Source notes, bibliographies, and an index are included.