Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity

by David Hurst Thomas and Paul Felix Lazarsfeld

Book Overview

The 1996 discovery, near Kennewick, Washington, of a 9,000-year-old Caucasoid skeleton brought more to the surface than bones. The explosive controversy and resulting lawsuit also raised a far more fundamental question: Who owns history? Many Indians see archeologists as desecrators of tribal rites and traditions; archeologists see their livelihoods and science threatened by the 1990 Federal reparation law, which gives tribes control over remains...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 046509225X
• ISBN13: 9780465092253
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating and Provocative

Skull Wars is a fascinating survey of the relationship between anthropologists and Native Americans. In the process of telling this story, Thomas discusses many of the interesting episodes along the way such as the discovery of Kennewick Man, the Greenland Eskimos in New York, and the emergence of Ishi. Central to the book is the struggle over "scientific racism" which is really still continuing today. In the past, skull size was often seen as an indicator of intelligence. Thomas devotes a great deal of space to the ideas of Franz Boas who denied a biological basis for race by showing the irrelevance of skull size, paving the way for the idea of race as a social construction. Thomas also discusses how much Native Americans have generally hated the desecration of their ancestor's bodies by grave-robbing anthropologists who were looking for specimens, noting that people of European descent do not expect their dead to be treated in this way. The ideas of Vine Deloria seem to have had a great impact on Thomas's thinking and he is cited frequently in the book mainly in the context of putting Native peoples back in charge of their remains. Congress has made it official by passing the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. Another issue that Thomas deals with and ties in to the issues already cited is the origin of people indigenous to the Americas. Thomas seems to come down on the side of saying that it is an open question and that the Bering Strait theory is by no means a closed case. All in all, a very interesting and provocative book.

Skull Wars tells it like it is

David Hurst Thomas has produced an amazing book in Skull Wars. It is at once a serious scholarly history of the relationship between archaeologists and Native Americans and at the same time a good read, accessible to an informed public. Thomas tells it like it is when it comes to this history. As he points out it is a history that archaeologist cannot be proud of. He does an excellent job of demonstrating how the colonial context of archaeology shaped the actions of scholars to bad ends, often despite their good intentions.Those individuals who call for a more balanced account of this history only wish to deny or cover up the ugly truth. Thomas is if anything too kind to many of the key figures of early archaeology and in the recent Kennewick controversy. As Thomas argues archaeologists need to learn from this history and not simply hide behind naive good intentions. Thomas demonstrates how informed archaeologists can work with Native American people to build common ground and interests. He shows us how we can go beyond the controversy to link good intentions with good actions.I cannot verify or deny Thomas' comments on the Asatru religion but the reviews that react so negatively to them are focusing in on only a couple of paragraphs in the book. These comments have little to do with the overall point of the book or its content. Virtually no professional archaeologists accept the idea that there is evidence for Norse or other European settlement or exploration in North American much before AD 900 or that these explorations extended beyond the east coast of Canada. Even the theory advanced by a few archaeologists that paleolithic Solutrian peoples from the Iberian Peninsula may have crossed the arctic ice to become the North American Clovis culture has been recently dismissed in American Antiquity. As a professional archaeologist and a scholar who has written extensively on relationships between archaeologists and Native Americans I welcome this readable account. It is a book that should be read by anyone interested in North American archaeology and I hope that it will become required reading of all archaeology students.

Skull Wars

Skull Wars is a superb read - engagingly written and forcefully presented - it has relevance well beyond the anthropological and Native American communities. Thomas'interweaving of history, American socio-political history and the emergence of social sciences as practiced in the US is fascinating. He's packed an amazing amount of research into this volume. I learned much and disagree with little. Coming to terms with the issue of race in this country is still in many ways largely intractable, but made much more complex by issues of class. When compounded with the Native American experience the complexities are even more magnified. The issues confronted in Skull Wars are particularly germane for those Native American groups that have retained some semblance of generational continuity. Thomas accurately touches on the "top down" weaknesses of the implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Thomas clearly articulates that there is not a one-size fits all approach to accommodating and reconciling the concerns of legitimately affected Native Americans and the archaeological community. The positive examples at the end of the book serve as models for much of the country. I hope Skull Wars reaches the wide audience it deserves. I enthusiastically recommend it.

A very good reading.

History id the record of those event and people that happened in our past and the history are usually slanted to the side that the author wants you to believe. Most of these books I find hard to read so when Skull Wars arrived I was ready for another slanted look into American history, I was wrong, very wrong.In one this years best readings, I found myself engrossed by how well the author was able to make his point and deliver hard facts to back up every statement. His look into the controversy that started in July 1996 in Kennewick, Washington is one of the most compelling books I have ever read.Follow along and look into how the discovery of a 9,000-year-old skeleton found in the Columbia River could create a stir in major anthropological and archaeological circles that may rage well into the 21st century.David Hurst Thomas has written a book that gives you another look into not only American History, but also far more importantly Native American History and for that he should be congratulated. Check out Basic Books website for more titles, you won't be disappointed.

Light on anthropology

Any student or professional in the field of anthropology needs to add this book to their collection. It reads like a novel and is packed with enough information to inspire further reasearch on many different subjects. An excellent resource for much more than learning about the Kenniwick man, it draws insight into the struggle between science and the native american conflict. This book will be an excellent reference for years to come.