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forced Indian removals).26
There have been several noteworthy cases in which courts have ruled against Native nations in

repatriation suits on the grounds that the remains that they are seeking to reinter cannot be adequately
ascribed to the modern Native culture. Perhaps the most famous case concerning cultural affiliation to
prehistoric remains is found in the ongoing court battle for the skeleton nicknamed the Kennewick
Man. This skeleton was discovered in Washington State in 1996, on land belonging to the U.S. Corps
of Army Engineers.27 The initial interpretation made by James Chatters, whose examination focused
mainly on the suspected phenotypical implications of the bone structure, was that this skeleton
represented the remains of a “Caucasoid,” or someone of European descent.28 This interpretation was
challenged by local Native nations, and after years of court decisions and reversals, eventual DNA
testing results, reported in 2015, proved the closest living descendants of the “Kennewick Man” are
Native Americans. While this evidence proves that the remains, known to Native Americans as the
Ancient One, represent a distinct group of peoples whose descendants are modern Native Americans,
the skeleton remains in the possession of the Burke Museum.29 The ultimate decision regarding the fate
of these remains lies with the Army Corps of Engineers, as under NAGPRA regulation they are the
entity with custodial power, who have promised a commitment to a swift resolution of this decades old
dispute.30

Fortunately, Ocmulgee National Monument suffers from no such ambiguity in who has
NAGPRA claim rights to the many cultural, ceremonial, and funerary finds made at the monument.
While there are twelve tribes that currently have established Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act rights to the Ocmulgee site, there is one modern Nation to which the others defer all

26 National NAGPRA Program, “Decision Making Under NAGPRA,” published March 19, 2012, accessed February 26,
2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koMOkK13dgU&feature=plcp_.

27 David J. Melzter, “Kennewick Man: Coming to Closure,” Antiquity 89, no. 348 (December 2015): 1485-1493.
28 Fernando Armstrong-Fumero, “Even the Most Careless Observer: Race and Visual Discernment in Physical

Anthropology from Samuel Morton to Kennewick Man,” American Studies 53, no. 2 (June 2014): 5-29.
29 Burke Museum, “Kennewick Man, The Ancient One,” Burke Blog, February 20, 2016, accessed February 20, 2016,

http://www.burkemuseum.org/blog/kennewick-man-ancient-one.
30 Meltzer, “Kennewick Man: coming to closure,” 1485-1493.