They may have been dead for more than 9000 years, but the future looks uncertain for two early Americans unearthed in 1976 below the University of California in San Diego.
Members of a local Native American tribe 鈥� the 鈥� want to rebury the remains, which they believe are their ancestors. In December, UCSD agreed to hand over the skeletons, but in April three palaeoanthropologists to keep the remains for research. The Kumeyaay had anticipated the move and filed their own lawsuit days earlier. Last week, the university agreed to a judge鈥檚 order to keep the remains in a safe place until a final ruling.
Since 1990, US law has mandated universities to return Native American artefacts and remains to their respective tribes. But UCSD鈥檚 scientific advisory board determined that there is no evidence that these two skeletons are related to the Kumeyaay, even though they were discovered on that tribe鈥檚 ancestral lands. Isotopic evidence taken from the skeletons suggests they ate seafood 鈥� unlike the Kumeyaay鈥檚 traditional diet 鈥� and the Kumeyaay traditionally cremate their deceased rather than bury them.
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James McManis, an attorney in San Jose who represents the three palaeoanthropologists, is confident that scientific evidence outweighs the tribe鈥檚 claim. Lawyers for the tribe nevertheless insist that research on the bones would be disrespectful.
鈥淣owhere in the world is this sensitivity so acute as in the US,鈥� says anthropologist Bryan Sykes at the University of Oxford. He believes that tensions were escalated by a recent case where researchers in Arizona performed DNA analysis on the Havasupai tribe鈥檚 ancestry without their consent. The results indicated that the people hadn鈥檛 always lived in North America, contrary to tribal beliefs.
