Land of a thousand dances
Jay Maeder
US News & World Report
September 22, 1997

Add now Norsemen to those who claim proprietary rights to Kennwick Man, the 
9,300-year-old skeleton found last year in Washington's Columbia River. At 
river's edge the other day, to the great outrage of American Indians who 
call Kennewick Man their sacred ancestor, a cult of neo-Vikings offered 
ancient pagan prayers to the bones that they insist belong to their forebear 
instead. "In the sign of Odin, Balder, Frey, and Thor, may all evil be 
banished from this place!" shouted their leader.

Thus continued the dramatics attending One of the Most Startling Science
Stories of the Age. K-Man, it happens, is identifiably Caucasoid, and his
discovery has rocked All Extant Systems of Belief as anthropologists
ponder a large and quite politically incorrect question about The
Peopling of North America: Is it possible that the original "Native 
Americans" were, um, white guys?

Umatillas and other Indians have denounced this as unthinkable, and the 
US Army Corps of Engineers has sought to placate them, boneheadedly 
deciding that K-Man should be given over to the tribes for burial. A
bristling federal judge told the engineers to go soak their heads, 
temporarily ruling in favor of scientists, who themselves are seeking
custody of the deceased for further study. That was even before the
Norsemen showed up. Legal arguments will resume shortly.