July 28

On July 28th, 1996, Kennewick Man was discovered.

Kennewick Man is the skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found by the Columbia River in Washington State.

These remains quickly became the subject of dispute. Archeologists wanted to examine the remains, while local Indian tribes wanted to put the remains to rest with appropriate ceremony. As the case involved Indian law, it was automatically heard in federal court, using NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). The tribe lost as the remains could not be directly linked to any current tribe culturally, largely as a consequence of the remains being so old and tribal records being largely oral.

In July 2005, scientific tests and measurements were performed. The remains are the legal property of the US Army Corps of Engineers, housed at the Burke Museum in Seattle.