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The Paleoamerican Skeleton Known as Kennewick Man
Exhibitor: James C. Chatters
The Kennewick Skeleton represents the remains of a moderately built,
middle-aged man who stood approximately 173 ± 3.6 cm (~5.6 ft) tall and
weighed about 72 kg (159 lbs). Although apparently well nourished and
healthy in his youth, he suffered repeatedly from serious injuries,
including a debilitating fracture and infection of the left elbow, a
massive thoracic trauma that caused a chronic flail chest, and a spear
wound in the right ilium that developed a chronic infection. The cause of
his death cannot be pinpointed, but active and inactive bone infections
raise the possibility of septicemia, and a possible, final,
shoulder-dislocating injury is a strong candidate. The man's femoral and
craniofacial discrete and metric characteristics and limb proportions,
characteristic of a person from the subtropics rather than the north
temperate zone, make him stand out from modern American Indians,
especially those who occupied northwestern North America in later
prehistory. Geochronology, a projectile point of early Cascade style in
his hip, and a radiocarbon date of 8,410 ± 60 B.P. place his time firmly
in the later part of the early Holocene.
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