|
|
Mystery of the First Americans
|
|
|
|
Program Overview
|
|
|
In 1996, near Kennewick, Washington, a suspected murder victim is identified by forensic
anthropologists as Caucasian - but turns out to be almost 10,000 years old. For fifty years our
picture of prehistoric America has rested on the premise that the earliest inhabitants of the
Americas were east Asians of mongoloid stock, the ancestors of today's Native Americans.
But the discovery of the Kennewick Man, along with several other startling finds in recent years,
has thrown that once widely accepted idea into question and revolutionized the science of
paleo-anthropology. It has also embroiled scientists in a bitter conflict with Native American
groups who want the scientific study of early Americans halted. Who and what do Kennewick Man and
others represent? NOVA is following the efforts of paleo-anthropologists work to decode the
story in the bones of people who died 10,000 years ago.
|
|
