"An epic struggle between science and religion ended quietly this week.I'm happy to report that science won."
Would that it were really so. As pointed out by Westneat and elsewhere, the Army Corps of Engineers (which still "owns" the skeleton) is balking:
"Attorney for the scientists Alan L Schneider told BBC News Online: 'We feel that they are improperly interjecting themselves into the purpose for which we can study the skeleton and the types of studies that would be appropriate to achieve the objectives.'The government has said that it would not permit any chemical or invasive testing on the bones. This would scupper any further attempts to obtain DNA samples from Kennewick Man.
The discussions are also likely to cover the question of how access to the remains is controlled.
'They're saying you have to restrict your studies and only a couple of people can go in and look at it and that sort of thing,' Professor Robson Bonnichsen, one of the lead scientists, told BBC News Online.
The plaintiffs are also concerned by suggestions the bones may have deteriorated in the eight years since they was pulled from the sediment.
'The government has now come up with all kinds of concerns - that the skeleton is in such poor condition. The condition's changed under their watch because everyone said it was in great condition when it came in,' explained Professor Bonnichsen.
'We know that the number of pieces of skeleton have grown since they've been there lying in the cabinet,' he added.
And there's an ongoing effort to amend NAGPRA to, essentially, incorporate religious beliefs into laws concerned with the study of the past. Westneat's editorial does a good job of clarifying this point, so often obscured in reporting on Kennewick and related cases.
"The battle over the bones was often described as a collision between scientific inquiry and tribal rights. At its core, though, it was a new front in the ongoing war over the origin of the human species.The tribes took a faith-based view in arguing the skeleton was ancestral to today's Indians and should be reburied.
As Armand Minthorn of Oregon's Umatilla Tribe said: 'We already know what happened 10,000 years ago. We know we have always been there. The scientists cannot accept that.'
It is radical that two federal agencies agreed, twice deeding the skeleton to the tribes on the basis of Indian oral histories and spiritual allegories.
This was done out of sensitivity to the tribes. But scientifically it is akin to citing a literal reading of the Bible to block the study of evolution."
Exactly. Now, I don't believe for a minute that this accurate appraisal of this particular case makes the resolution of all such science/private belief disputes nice and simple. The question of how much say science and "expert opinion" should have over policy is thornier than the simpler cases suggest. The point is not that "faith-based" beliefs cannot be brought into the public square, there to be evaluated for their possible merit by others who do not share the faith in question. The point is that no particular faith should be granted higher legal standing in the public square than other faiths. In the same way that, say, a Christian could persuade an atheist to support a pro-life position and attendant legislation, it is possible that believers in the "Ancient One" could persuade a broader public to abjure the study of bones. But just as the Christian will not persuade the atheist by appeal to the Bible - nor may he offer his bible as a legal argument - the tribal claimants cannot demand that reasoning internal to their own religion be used to resolve disputes with other citizens who do not share that religion. (We do, rightfully, privilege science in certain disputes, because science is neutral and "equal opportunity". The tribal claimants tacitly acknowledge this by accepting the scientifically-determined antiquity of the Kennewick bones.)
Normally, this kind of "internal reference" is recognized immediately for what it is, and rejected; not so in these cases. In the literature, it is advanced with rather more euphemistic language, but it's remarkable that it has been blithely and baldly advanced in courts of law:
"At trial, the government even argued that if someone found 150,000-year-old skeletons from the dawn of Homo sapiens - an 'Adam and Eve,' one attorney said - the remains would automatically be deemed ancestral to today's tribes and reburied.Scientists were flabbergasted that 'ownership of all human history had been granted to one group,' said Cleone Hawkinson, a Portland anthropologist."
NAGPRA mandates the return of remains and artifacts to groups that can demonstrate a cultural or genetic affiliation. The claimants to the bones of Kennewick Man failed to satisfy the law's criteria for affiliation. Despite the decision not to appeal,
"[...]the Umatilla's board of trustees would begin working with other Native American tribes on a strategy to amend the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (Nagpra), the law enacted in 1990 to protect tribal burials.'Nagpra needs to be strengthened so that it fulfils Congress' original intent, which was to protect tribal burials and return sacred items to the tribes,' said Armand Minthorn, Umatilla board of trustees member."
Since Congress's original intent was satisfied in the Kennewick case, one can only interpret this as meaning that Congress should amend NAGPRA to grant one group's religious beliefs a legally privileged status.
Addendum: I recently came across an illustrative example of the question-begging reasoning that pervades this debate, from the 1999 NAGPRA hearings in the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs:
"3. Recommendation: Congress should adopt a policy to ensure the prompt reburial of culturally unidentifiable human remains.I am under the assumption that the evidence that will be required to substantiate claims for culturally-unidentifiable human remains will be onerous, costly and time consuming. It is my recommendation that Congress should adopt a policy that would automatically return and rebury culturally-unidentifiable remians to the site from which the remains were taken. The same sacred and spiritual beliefs surrounding culturally-unidentifiable remain [sic] apply as they do to culturally-identifiable remains. This country has honored all unidentifiable remains of military personnel symbolized by the 'Unknown Soldier' and buried them. I believe Unknown Native American human remains deserve the same treatment and respect."
Leave aside the false analogy (unknown soldiers are not "unidentifiable" as K-man is "unidentifiable" under NAGPRA definitions of cultural and genetic affiliation; furthermore, we do study the unindentifiable recently dead.) The crucial point is the very typical rhetorical move of trying to pass off the contested point as if it were the agreed upon premise of the debate: viz., that the "Unknown" can be assumed to be "Native American". Unfortunately, this sleight-of-hand is often uncritically accepted by reporters responsible for informing the public on these issues. For example, journalists covering court decisions in favor of the scientist plaintiffs often, and erroneously, report that the Kennewick bones will be returned to the tribal claimants for burial after completion of permitted studies. Not only is this untrue, it makes no sense in light of the substance of the legal decision that the journalist accurately reports. As anthropologist Cleone Hawkinson remarks re a recent report, the press needs to "'get it' and stop letting the tribes frame this issue. The reporter didn't even press Rob Roy Smith [a claimants' attorney implying a legal claim to the bones] on 'who' the bones should be returned to for reburial after study, and the basis for such action."
(If you are interested in the related topic of "sacred lands" legislation, peruse Recommendation 2 in the above document. Rather...expansive, no?)
[entry edited to add additional material - mb]