https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/10/the-woke-war-on-the-past/
In 1996 a skull was found on the banks of the Columbia River near the town of Kennewick, Wash. Authorities were notified, and the coroner called in anthropologist James Chatters to examine the remains for further information. In nine visits to the site, Chatters found a number of bones that were parts of a nearly complete skeleton. He determined that the skeleton was decades old, or even older. He also found several artifacts from the 19th century scattered around the discovery site, as well as, embedded in the skeleton’s hip bone, a stone projectile point showing that the man had been wounded by a spear or an arrow.
All this, along with the Caucasoid features of the skull, led Chatters to conclude that the remains were those of a trapper or a pioneer of the 19th century. This meant that the remains were well beyond the time limit when they would be of interest to the authorities. To find out more, he sent a sample of one of the bones to a laboratory for radiocarbon dating. He was surprised to find that the skeleton was actually some 9,000 years old, one of the oldest human skeletons ever found in the Americas.
The skeleton, known as Kennewick Man, caused scientists to reconsider theories of the peopling of the Americas. It also became the subject of a legal dispute between scientists and a coalition of Native American tribes in the area. The tribes claimed possession of the remains under the provisions of a federal law, the Native American Graves Protection Act (NAGPRA), which states that any human remains with lineal descent from a living tribe must be turned over to that tribe. Another reason for the transfer of ownership is “shared cultural affinity,” which is broadly defined to include oral traditions and geographical location. Litigation in such cases, therefore, can drag on for years, as was the case with Kennewick Man. During that time further examinations revealed that over his lifetime Kennewick Man had suffered, besides the arrowhead lodged in his hip, multiple rib fractures, a broken arm, and a head injury, giving us a closer look of life in prehistoric times.
Eventually DNA analysis showed a resemblance of the bones to some South American indigenous populations, and the remains were given to the claimant tribe for burial in an undisclosed location. This ignored the fact that we are all in some degree related and that, without a broad database that includes many tribes, a living tribe cannot reasonably be determined to be related by lineal descent to remains this old. And in this case, cultural affiliation meant simply geographic location. The main thing, however, was to defer to the tribes, for Native Americans have become a favored group in today’s society.
All this coincided with the ever-rising tide of identity politics, whereby the interests of a preferred group are advanced at the cost of the common good. This approach, part of a Marxist-based ideology that has been spreading through the institutions, is known variously variously as “wokeism” and “cancel culture.” It is an ideology that reduces all social, cultural, and political differences to two categories, the suppressed and the suppressers. In the case of American history, the Native Americans are the victims and the majority-white population are the suppressors. Since this movement deals with the acquisition and the holding of power rather than with the advance of science, its advocates do not counter their opponents with rational arguments.
