The Federal government, through the United States Army Corps of Engineers, held jurisdiction over the land where the remains were found and thus had legal custody.
The controversial case wound its way through courts for many years, including a period when scientists won access to study the remains.
Kennewick Man was buried according to Indian traditions on February 18, 2017, with 200 members of five Columbia basin tribes in attendance, at an undisclosed location in the area.
[7] The identification of Kennewick Man as closely related to modern Native Americans symbolically marked the "end of a [supposed] non-Indian ancient North America".
[11] After further study, Chatters concluded it was "a male of late middle age (40–55 years), and tall (170 to 176 cm, 5′7″ to 5′9″), and was fairly muscular with a slender build".
[1] Measurements of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope ratios in the bone collagen indicate that the man lived almost exclusively on a diet of marine mammals for the last 20 or so years of his life, and that the water he drank was glacial melt.
[18] Chatters et al. (2000) conducted a graphic comparison, including size, of Kennewick Man to eighteen modern populations.
[1] Advances in genetic research made it possible to analyze ancient DNA (aDNA) more accurately than earlier attempts when the skeleton was found.
The study concluded Kennewick Man belonged to a population closely related to contemporary Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, including Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
[4] By examining the calcium carbonate left behind as underground water collected on the underside of the bones and then evaporated, scientists were able to conclude that Kennewick Man was lying on his back with his feet rolled slightly outward and his arms at his side, with the palms facing down, a position that could not have been accidental.
Eighteen nationally and internationally recognized scientists and scholars conducted a variety of historical and scientific examinations, analyses, tests, and studies.
"Palaeoamericans" posit the earliest inhabitants are not related to modern day Indians, possibly they were Asians from an extinct lineage, or even from Europe.
[7] The discovery of Kennewick Man, along with other ancient skeletons, has furthered scientific debate over the origin and history of early Native American people.
[9] One hypothesis holds that a single source of migration occurred, consisting of hunters and gatherers following large herds of game who wandered across the Bering land bridge.
[29] The similarity of some ancient skeletal remains in the Americas, such as Kennewick Man, to coastal Asian phenotypes is suggestive of more than one migration source.[how?
][2][9][22][30] Classification of DNA from ancient skeletons such as Kennewick Man and others of similar phenotype may or may not reveal genetic affiliation between them, with either Beringian[31][32] or coastal Asian[33][34] source populations.
Regardless of the debate over whether there were more than one source of migration following the LGM, Kennewick Man has yielded insight into the marine lifestyle and mobility of early coastal migrants.
[35] Third, Owsley's non-Native argument hinged on the assumption that Kennewick Man's skull was a reliable means of assessing ancestry.
In 1998, The New York Times reported "White supremacist groups are among those who used Kennewick Man to claim that Caucasians came to America well before Native Americans.
"[38] Additionally, Asatru Folk Assembly, a racialist neopagan organization, sued to have the bones genetically tested before it was adjudicated that Kennewick Man was an ancestor of present-day Native Americans.
[41] Native American tribes asserted that the claims that Kennewick Man was of non-Indian origin was an attempt to evade the law governing custodianship of ancient bones.
The anthropologists won the case in 2002, and on February 4, 2004, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit panel rejected an appeal brought by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the Umatilla, Colville, Yakama, Nez Perce, and other tribes on the grounds that they were unable to show sufficient evidence of kinship.
In September 2016, in light of new DNA evidence associating Kennewick Man with modern day Native Americans, the 114th US House and Senate passed legislation to return the ancient bones to a coalition of Columbia Basin tribes.