Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans

One of the oldest human skeletons found to date is referred to as "Kennewick Man." This skeleton was discovered by two young men along the Columbia River in 1996 and brought to the attention of James Chatters, a forensic anthropologist and our guest today on Focus. Controversy arose when the U.S. government reclaimed Kennewick Man and placed him in storage—but Chatters had done enough tests to reveal the skeleton to be nearly 9,500 years old. Today on Focus, Chatters will explain how, armed with this information, he set out on a multicontinental quest to understand the origins of Kennewick Man.

Guest: James Chatters (archeologist; paleoecologist; Adjunct Associate Professor of Research, Central Washington University; author of Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans)