Conclusion: The Future of the United States 233of modern Europeans, therefore, Europeans were the "first Ameri
cans." The Archaeological Institute of America dismissed such
claims, denouncing the already discredited "science" of determining
racial characteristics projected back in time. Yet the claims stuck in
the public mind and media bias.
Clearly the controversy was not about science, but rather about
Native claims of antiquity, sovereignty, and rights, and settler re
sentment. Chatters made this clear when he was interviewed on the
CBS program 60 Minutes: "The tribe's fight against further testing
of Kennewick Man is based largely on fe ar, fear that if someone
was here before they were, their status as sovereign nations, and all
that goes with it-treaty rights, and lucrative casinos ... could be
at risk." The white supremacist group Asutru Folk Assembly made a
similar assessment: "Kennewick Man is our kin .... Native Ameri
can groups have strongly contested this idea, perceiving that they
have much to lose if their status as the 'First Americans' is over
turned. We will not let our heritage be hidden by those who seek to
obscure it."3^6
Chatters claimed that Kennewick Man "has so many stories to
tell. ... When you work with these individuals you develop an em
pathy, it's like you know another individual intimately."37 Erik Da
vis, calling this identification with the remains a scientist studies
"pathological ventriloquism," points out that even the judge who
sided with Chatters in the dispute with the Umatilla Nation got into
the act, saying that the remains were "a book that they can read,
a history written in bone instead of on paper, just as the history
of a region may be 'read' by observing layers of rock or ice, or the
rings of a tree."38 Forty-five years ago, archaeologist Robert Silver
berg wrote about the appeal of "lost tribes" to Anglo-Americans:
"The dream of a lost prehistoric race in the American heartland was
profoundly satisfying, and if the vanished ones had been giants, or
white men, or Israelites, or Danes, or Toltecs, or great white Jewish
To ltec Vikings, so much the better."39 Anything but Indians, for that
would provide evidence reminding Anglo settlers' descendants that
the continent was stolen, genocide committed, and the land repopu
lated by settlers who seek authenticity but never find it because of
the lie they live with, suspecting the truth and fearing it.