Nevada mummy figures in fight over ancient history

Frank X. Mullen Jr.

Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2000 | 9:22 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - A Nevadan who died some 10,000 years ago is at the center of a battle over control of invaluable clues to the ancient history of North America.

In a few weeks, the Bureau of Land Management is expected to decide if a partially mummified skeleton will be given to a tribe Indians for secret burial, or if scientists can retain the remains - called Spirit Cave Man - for more scientific testing.

Anthropologists argue that Spirit Cave Man provides clues to the founding population of North America. Nevada Indians say the man is their ancestor and must be returned immediately for reburial.

"It's an example of science crashing into people's cultural beliefs," says Mike Hillerby, director of Nevada museums, libraries and archives. "The best we can do (at the museum) is tell both sides of the story and run the risk of pleasing nobody. It's a balancing act."

The Indians are within their rights under a federal law that mandates ancient remains must be returned if requested by the tribe most closely affiliated with the dead person.

The Spirit Cave Man, found long before the law was passed, presents a dilemma: the mummy's skull doesn't resemble members of any Indian tribe. The man might represent an entirely different group of people who were in the Americas before the Indians' ancestors.

The Nevada find, along with other recent discoveries, is reshaping the prehistory of North America.

"He's the best-dated early person in North America," says Amy Dansie, an anthropologist who studied the remains at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City. "We've learned a lot. But there are many more mysteries just ahead of us."

Those mysteries could remain unsolved if such remains are reburied without testing, some anthropologists say.

But Indian leaders, who said they already have the truths about their origin, say their spirituality - even their group identity - is at stake.

"We have been here since the beginning of time," says Rochanne Downs, a member of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, which is claiming the remains.

"We've already lost so much of our history and culture. We don't want our grandfather buried in a file cabinet. We want to rebury him at home."

That view isn't shared by Adam Fortunate Eagle, a Chippewa Indian who lives on the Fallon Reservation but isn't a member of the tribe. He says Spirit Cave Man should be reburied with ceremony, but not without proper study.

"Spirit Cave Man is a teacher from the far distant past," Fortunate Eagle says. "He is an elder. Let us acknowledge his teachings. He has a lot to tell us. It would be disrespectful not to listen to him."

"We should not run from the truth of history or try to suppress the truth the way the old churches did. We should embrace truth and learn as much as we can."

He says his opinions are his own and notes his daughter, a Fallon tribal member, serves on the committee fighting for return of the Spirit Cave remains.

Ever since the Spirit Cave Man's antiquity was announced in 1994, the media have reported the partially mummified remains were 9,415 years old. But that's a radiocarbon date, also called a carbon-14 date, not a calendar date.

Living things take in carbon from the atmosphere while they are alive. The radiocarbon dating technique depends on the rate this carbon decays over time. But the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere changes from year to year and can vary by as much as 15 percent.

That means adjustments must be made to carbon years to arrive at calendar years, and results can vary widely.

According to one computer program for the calibrations, Spirit Cave Man, dates to roughly 10,630 calendar years ago. That's 1,215 years older than the raw carbon date.