SEATTLE — For a few days last week, the nation's top forensic anthropologists thought they were finally going to get their chance to study Kennewick Man.
The eight-year legal battle over the 9,300-year-old bones, one of the oldest skeletons found in North America, appeared to be over after five Northwest Indian tribes decided not to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The tribes had claimed that Kennewick Man was an ancestor and should not be desecrated by scientific study.
Two courts had ruled in favor of the eight plaintiff scientists, who believed the bones -- discovered in 1996 along the Columbia River near Kennewick, Wash. -- could yield insights on the earliest inhabitants of the Americas. The skeleton, in one preliminary study, was found to have some Caucasian features. It may help shed light on migration to North America apart from the theory that people walked across a land bridge from Asia.
But soon after the scientists' apparent victory, a new legal obstacle emerged late last week, this time from the federal government.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has custody of the skeleton and which sided early on with the tribes, has objected to so many aspects of the scientists' study plan that a new round of litigation is probable, according to a lawyer for the scientists.
The previous court battles focused on whether Kennewick Man should be subjected to scientific study. The new legal fight could center on how the bones will be studied.
"This case is long from over," said Alan Schneider, a Portland, Ore., lawyer representing the anthropologists.
Schneider said the government was using the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, which empowers owners of archeological finds, to hinder the scientists' plans.
Schneider predicted that he would go to court "to compel the government" to hand over the skeleton. "That seems to be the direction we're heading," he said.
Jennifer Richman, a lawyer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Portland, said that the scientists' plan was "subject to reasonable terms and conditions."
"We are trying to work it out," she said.
The tribes also want a say in how the bones are studied and hope to minimize the "destruction of tissue" and the "desecration of the remains," said Debra Croswell, a spokeswoman for the 2,500-member Umatilla Tribe in northeastern Oregon.
