Oral Tradition and the Kennewick Man

In April 2016, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers confirmed that the ancient human body discovered in 1996 near Kennewick, Washington, often referred to as the “Kennewick Man” or “The Ancient One,” is genetically related to modern-day Native Americans. This confirmation ended a twenty-year-long struggle between scientists at the Smithsonian, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and Native American tribes of the Columbia Plateau, and will now jumpstart the process for repatriation of the Kennewick Man to the Native American tribes for reburial in accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA).