U.S. Says Indian Tribes, Not Scientists, Have Rights to 9,300-Year-Old Remains

The U.S. Department of the Interior declared last week that the 9,300-year-old human remains of the Kennewick Man belong to five American Indian tribes that have claimed him as an ancestor, not to the scientists who want to study him.

The agency's decision hardly settles the dispute, however. It allows to proceed a 1996 lawsuit by researchers that a judge had put on hold, pending this ruling by the Interior Department.

The Kennewick Man, a

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