Zusammenfassung
Kennewick Man, referred to as the Ancient One by Native Americans,
is a male human skeleton discovered in Washington state (USA) in
1996 and initially radiocarbon-dated to 8,340–9,200 calibrated years
before present ( BP ) 1 . His population affinities have been the subject
of scientific debate and legal controversy. Based on an initial study
of cranial morphology it was asserted that Kennewick Man was
neither Native American nor closely related to the claimant
Plateau tribes of the Pacific Northwest, who claimed ancestral rela-
tionship and requested repatriation under the Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The morpho-
logical analysis was important to judicial decisions that Kennewick
Man was not Native American and that therefore NAGPRA did not
apply. Instead of repatriation, additional studies of the remains
were permitted 2 . Subsequent craniometric analysis affirmed
Kennewick Man to be more closely related to circumpacific groups
such as the Ainu and Polynesians than he is to modern Native
Americans 2 . In order to resolve Kennewick Man’s ancestry and
affiliations, we have sequenced his genome to 13 coverage and
compared it to worldwide genomic data including the Ainu and
Polynesians. We find that Kennewick Man is closer to modern
Native Americans than to any other population worldwide.
Among the Native American groups for whom genome-wide data
are available for comparison, several seem to be descended from a
population closely related to that of Kennewick Man, including the
Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (Colville), one of
the five tribes claiming Kennewick Man. We revisit the cranial
analyses and find that, as opposed to genomic-wide comparisons,
it is not possible on that basis to affiliate Kennewick Man to specific
contemporary groups. We therefore conclude based on genetic
comparisons that Kennewick Man shows continuity with Native
North Americans over at least the last eight millennia
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