Skull Wars : Kennewick Man, Archaeology, And The Battle For Native American Identity

Centered on the lawsuit over Kennewick Man, this lively history illuminates one of the most contentious issues in science: the battle between archeologists and American Indians. Foreword / Vine Deloria, Jr. -- Names and Images -- Columbus, Arawaks, and Caribs: The Power to Name -- A Vanishing American Icon -- Nineteenth-Century Scientists -- The First American Archaeologist -- A Short History of Scientific Racism in America -- Darwin and the Disappearing American Indian -- The Great American Skull Wars -- The Anthropology of Assimilation -- The Anthropologist as Hero -- Collecting Your Fossils Alive -- Is "Real History" Embedded in Oral Tradition? -- The Perilous Idea of Race -- Deep American History -- Origin Myths From Mainstream America -- The Smithsonian Takes on All Comers -- Where are All the Native American Archaeologists? -- Breakthrough at Folsom -- Busting the Clovis Barrier -- What Modern Archaeologists Think About the Earliest Americans -- The Indians Refuse to Vanish -- "Be an Indian and Keep Cool" -- An Indian New Deal: From Absolute Deprivation to Mere Poverty -- The Red Power of Vine Deloria, Jr. -- Legislating the Skull Wars -- Bridging the Chasm -- Tribal Affiliation and Sovereignty -- Speaking of Oral Tradition -- An Archaeology Without Alienation. The 1996 discovery, near Kennewick, Washington, of a 9,000-year-old Caucasoid skeleton brought more to the surface than bones. The explosive controversy and resulting lawsuit also raised a far more fundamental question: Who owns history? Many Indians see archeologists as desecrators of tribal rites and traditions; archeologists see their livelihoods and science threatened by the 1990 Federal reparation law, which gives tribes control over remains in their traditional territories. In this new work, Thomas charts the riveting story of this lawsuit, the archeologists' deteriorating relations with American Indians, and the rise of scientific archeology. His telling of the tale gains extra credence from his own reputation as a leader in building cooperation between the two sides. "In Skull Wars, archaeologist David Hurst Thomas traces the 500-year roots of the Kennewick Man controversy. From Thomas Jefferson's invention of scientific archaeology to the brutal massacres in which skulls of Indian warriors were sent east to build museum collections; from the strange fates of Ishi and Qisuk to the astonishing power of oral tradition in preserving centuries-old memories, this book tells what really went on between archaeologists and Indians - and shows how the two groups can work together in the future."--Jacket