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Mystery of the First Americans
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Program Overview
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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.
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