It was interesting to hear NPR’s radio report last night about Kennewick Man, who has been long disappeared from media reports and public discussions. The main thrust of the audio segment was of his athletic musculature, describing him as “all beefcake” and leaving out his racial identity entirely (read the transcript or listen to the audio).

(At that point, I hazarded a guess that the K-man was not a native American. Interestingly NPR’s online version of the story included the racial component and the photo shown here.)

You may recall that the accidental discovery of the remains in 1996 set off a series of cultural skirmishes, where native groups angrily insisted that Kennewick was one of their tribe and therefore should be buried ASAP. Scientists wanted to examine the remains to learn more about the identity of the man, and they finally prevailed in 2004, although the investigations have been severely limited because of cultural sensitivities.

Often the facts of pre-history are more complex and interesting than the standard story, and so it is in this case. The remains were of a man of Asian descent, possibly Polynesian, who are known to have been awesome sailors who traveled much of the Pacific. (For an overview of pre-Columbian explorations indicating how much early man got around, see the History Channel’s “Who Really Discovered America?”)

The information released so far is pretty sketchy, but is nevertheless fascinating. Hopefully more is coming.